For new members, this guide is helpful for national DSA caucus politics. Anonymized slate platforms are included here: Red Slate, Poder Popular, Groundwork's DSA for All platform (the MDC slate website has been taken down). For disclosure, the author is one of the Red Slate delegates.
THIS YEAR, the Metro DC chapter will be sending representatives from a range of political tendencies to the national DSA convention. In the end, 75 candidates, across 3 slates as well as independents, ran in competition for 46 seats. Our last special steering election in April received 276 votes. Only a month later members cast 432 valid ballots for delegate elections — a more than 50% increase and a definitively positive structure test for chapter democracy.
For the election itself, Red Slate ran 22 candidates; Poder Popular (affiliated with the Marxist Unity Group and Communist Caucus) 12; and DSA For All (affiliated with Groundwork) 32. Members elected 14 Red Slate delegates; 6 Poder Popular delegates; 21 DSA For All delegates; 1 Bread and Roses delegate; and 4 independent delegates. The makeup of the delegation can be seen below:
And a breakdown of how candidates translated into delegate seats:
Red Slate and Poder Popular comprised the two blocs that organized for the local anti-Zionist resolution up to our local convention in December, and both were unity slates of different organized tendencies in the chapter. Red Slate included uncaucused members of the abolition, internationalism, publications, and street team working groups, organizers in the Northern Virginia branch, as well as the Libertarian Socialist caucus. Red Slate members have advocated for Springs of Revolution resolutions, some Libertarian Socialist Caucus resolutions, and “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA.” (The Springs of Revolution platform this year would move DSA towards a united left for the 2028 presidential election; increase local dues-share from national; and increase commitments to abolition and electoral discipline.)
Poder Popular was made of caucused members of the labor and Stomp Out Slumlords working groups, split evenly between the Communist Caucus and Marxist Unity Group. Poder promoted “Towards a Multilingual DSA”, resolutions that strengthen internal democracy, EWOC, and tenant union formation, and “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA.” Marxist Unity Group has submitted several national resolutions this year, which attempt to unify DSA’s political program and endorsement process.
DSA For All overwhelmingly contained members of the Groundwork caucus. Their candidates were most active in the labor working group, Stomp Out Slumlords, and some Administrative committee formations, like Membership Engagement. Their main recommendations were the national Groundwork resolutions. Those include proposals to re-establish the Multi-Racial Organizing Committee, the production of DSA statewide formations, and a variety of measures to lower barriers to member polling or referenda and create direct member elections of the National Political Committee and federal endorsements.
It’s harder to parse a pattern in the independent delegates. But they seem to either have been active in the labor working group (one is a co-chair) or branch organizing, and includes the primary leader of the Bodily Autonomy Working Group’s push for two successful Trans Sanctuary Resolution campaigns in Alexandria and Arlington.
I want to be clear: the good vibes produced by this election are neither an accident nor were they inevitable. This result did not happen magically. It took enormous effort from the entire chapter. In contrast, the 2023 MDC convention elections — which resulted in a credentials challenge to national — created conflict that has simmered for the past 2 years and overwhelmingly left a bitter taste in members’ mouths. As I wrote then, the strategy of the ruling bloc of the chapter to push for approval voting and run more candidates than delegate slots burned members out in the interest of sweeping every delegate seat. Vagueness in the Onward slate’s platform meant our delegation nearly unanimously voted to defang the national anti-Zionism resolution, without accountability.
We can compare our results in MDC to those in the LA chapter, which exclusively elected Groundwork and Socialist Majority Caucus delegates due to the strange “combined Approval–STV” method their chapter attempted to use and was overturned by a credentials challenge. While individual candidates might be disappointed by the MDC results, as of press time, this election has sparked no chapter conflicts. Instead, there is a communal interest in analyzing the results and understanding what they mean both for convention and how we go into future chapter debates. And I expect that the increased public debates about candidate positions will allow membership to better hold their elected delegates responsible for their eventual votes at national convention.
With the information provided by the election results, however, I would contest comrade Gary Z’s analysis of our local convention that we are at a state of synthesis much beyond a single issue. I do not believe synthesis means we are all unanimous in our opinions but that we are capable of moving past disagreements towards a positive course of action, instead of freezing, devolving into interpersonal conflict, or marching forward under a false sense of consensus. And, as Gary points out, while an anti-Zionism resolution was passed with more than 80% chapter support, on other issues, our chapter is still deeply divided. These delegation results attest to that, although they also mean that many different voices will be heard at convention. I believe that even if the delegation votes quite differently at convention itself, the collaboration of getting to convention and collectively representing Metro DC will strengthen relationships across the chapter in a way that will ultimately improve our local organizing. How did this happen, and why is it good?
First, we adopted STV as a voting method for the election. Members committed to proportional representation in internal democracy and many of the anti-Zionist resolution organizers fought for months to ensure our chapter would use STV. We looked to the 2025 convention rules in section 1.A.1.5, which outlined our national bylaws’ set a low bar for adoption of STV (10% petition of membership or 15% support at a chapter meeting). But we also knew that for this vote to go over well, we would have to organize much more support than that. The motion to adopt STV received 80% approval at our May general body meeting. Ranked-choice voting requires a lower number of votes to elect a delegate than approval, but candidates are also more directly competing for higher ranks from the exclusively awarded votes. Candidates running in dense blocs (all of the slates realistically) had to work extra hard to solicit new voters outside of their social groups—this is the material reason, I believe, voter turnout has been so high for this election in particular.
Second, in this campaign, there was much more willingness to engage in constructive debate up to and around the election. Candidates organized a forum facilitated by the Political Education working group for candidates from every slate and independents to gather in into the same room to discuss convention politics. All the slates hosted social events where it would be possible to meet and talk to candidates. Two consecutive general body meetings (April and May), as well as a separate convention town hall, featured agenda items dedicated to discussing convention in some way, so membership would be informed of the upcoming vote. Several Slack discussions prompted by members not running for delegate forced slates and candidates to differentiate themselves, something that can be hard to figure out from platform statements alone. Regular coverage of convention events in the chapter Weekly Update kept less-involved members aware of both the debate over STV and public election materials.
The result? A vote with the largest turnout in the chapter’s living memory. Even if we disagree on political particulars, getting almost 20% voter participation from a chapter of our size is a collective victory. Members who never engage in chapter democracy will have learned the process and be invested in results as we move to convention. As a result, it will now be easier to organize those members into other chapter efforts. The delegation itself will bring leaders in all the chapter’s tendencies into conversation, which will help us work towards positive resolutions in future disagreements. As I said, Metro DC is not yet ready for unity, but the outcome of this election suggests that we are on our way.
