[ If you want a timely and persuasive antidote to the conventional
narrative predicting the inevitable loss of Democratic congressional
majorities in November, read this book.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

TO WIN THE MIDTERMS AND BEYOND  
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Martin J. Bennett
September 8, 2022
Democratic Left
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_ If you want a timely and persuasive antidote to the conventional
narrative predicting the inevitable loss of Democratic congressional
majorities in November, read this book. _

,

 

In it you’ll find 23 essays and interviews summarizing the
experience of labor, minority, and community-based organizations
during the 2020 presidential and the 2021 Georgia run-offs
elections. 

The authors describe the grassroots organizing that drove outreach and
produced record turnout in 2020, particularly of low-income and voters
of color. This turnout, they argue, must be replicated in future
election cycles.

Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections
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Edited by Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum And Maria Poblet
OR Books; 420 pages
September 20, 2022
Paperback:  $25.00;  E-book:  $12.00
ISBN 978-1-68219-330-3  --  978-1-68219-329

Editors Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, and Maria Poblet, all experienced
organizers and strategists, contend, “We are in the early stages of
an era in which the left strengthens its capacity for effective
intervention from one election to the next, shifting the political
alignment in a progressive direction.”

By combining short-term electoral organizing “on the doors, in union
halls, places of worship, schools, and community centers” with
long-term social justice organizing, base building, and leadership
development, the Left can play an essential role in the struggle
against oligarchy and white supremacist minority rule while advancing
enduring structural change.

The book includes case studies of 2020 electoral organizing in swing
states such as Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida,
Virginia, Michigan, and Texas. Other chapters analyze the nationwide
electoral work of organizations such as UNITE HERE, Seed the Vote,
People’s Action, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Democratic
Socialists of America, and the Win Justice Coalition. Several chapters
consider the work of organizations engaging black, Latinx, Native
American, and Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters in
multiple states. 

Each chapter emphasizes that years of grassroots electoral and social
justice organizing preceded the 2020-2021 Democratic victories. The
lessons for future elections are too numerous to discuss in this
essay. However, four takeaways stand out for this reviewer.

FIRST, there is no contradiction between local, state, and federal
electoral work and the day-to-day patient work of building a long-term
social and economic justice movement. UNITE HERE is a labor
organization representing hotel, food service, and gaming
workers that hit the doors early in 2020
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1700 canvassers, adhering to strict COVID protocols in the swing
states of Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and then later in
Pennsylvania. The union is a powerhouse in Nevada
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and many observers credit UNITE HERE with flipping the Silver State
from deep red to nearly blue. “LOAs” or leave-of-absence
workers are the foundation
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the union’s political success. The union negotiates with employers
to allow workers to leave the workplace to walk precincts as paid
union canvassers. After the elections, LOAs return to the workplace
with the same pay, benefits, seniority, and job classification.

LOAs receive extensive on-the-job supervision and training to win the
election and develop their leadership skills. The goal is not just to
make LOAs better canvassers but for them to become more effective
committee members, shop stewards, or staff organizers when they return
to work. As UNITE HERE staffer Stephanie Greenlea stated about 2020
LOAs, “Their growth was immense – through the struggle, they
completely bloom.”

SECOND, door knocking is the essential ingredient
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elections. All the organizations profiled in the book testify that the
face-to-face conversation at the door is the most effective and
efficient way to reach out to and turn out voters – particularly low
propensity or infrequent voters such as youth, immigrants, and voters
of color. 

Canvassers must reflect the racial composition of the turf they walk,
which often requires multiple house visits and outreach through
community and faith networks. Enlarging the electorate by mobilizing
these voters – whose politics are to the left of mainstream
Democrats – is critical for progressives and the future of the
Democratic Party. 

In 2020, according to Brookings Institution demographer William Frey,
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propensity voters – along with higher propensity voters in racially
diverse suburbs
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were the slender margin of difference for the Biden-Harris
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in six battleground states
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Democrats won by less than 3%.

Seed the Vote (STV) is an organization formed in 2019 by organizers
affiliated with Bay Rising, an alliance of San Francisco Bay Area
organizations. STV partners with organizations such as UNITE HERE,
LUCHA (Living United for Change in Arizona), and New Georgia Majority
to place in swing states—often on short notice–seasoned California
volunteer organizers and STV-trained novice canvassers and phone
bankers. 

After deploying 1270 volunteers to Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania
in 2020-2021 STV leaders concluded that “traveling and taking time
off in the pandemic was not easy for anyone, but once people started
knocking on doors, they did not want to stop” and that “we must
stick to door-to-door and in-person tactics that are at the root of
our people power.”

THIRD, as editor Maria Poblet points out, mobilizing low-propensity
voters for a given election cycle is insufficient. Grassroots
electoral organizing must move these voters to become high propensity.
Electoral organizing must connect these voters to year-round voter
education and local campaigns that relate directly to their needs,
such as winning voting rights for formerly incarcerated people,
raising the minimum wage, union organizing, rent relief, and eviction
protection. Lower propensity voters who become active during
elections must find an enduring political home with labor and
community
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groups organizing for the long haul and building power at the local
level.

FINALLY, a section of the book analyzes the fraught relationship
between social justice progressives and the Democratic Party.
“Bernie 2020: Not Me, Us” is a roundtable discussion of
organizations that supported Sanders. The chapter concludes that the
2016 and 2020 Sanders campaigns “succeeded in surfacing and building
a progressive force both inside and outside the Democratic Party,
pushing the center of the Party leftward while at the same time
helping build forces outside the party willing to work in
coalition.” Sanders’s enduring influence is evident in how many of
his policy priorities have moved from the margins to the Democratic
Party mainstream
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Maurice Mitchell from the Working Families Party (WFP) urges a “dual
election strategy” of coalition with the Democrats against the
neo-fascist and right-wing authoritarianism of the Republican Party
while simultaneously supporting progressive Democrats who challenge
the Democratic establishment. He points to the WFP support for
progressive Jaamal Bowman, elected to Congress in New York’s 16th
Congressional District in 2018, as an example. Mitchell stresses the
importance of the WFP efforts to expand the Democratic voter base by
reaching infrequent voters, building an independent electoral
infrastructure, and supporting down-ballot progressive state and local
candidates who run on the WFP’s “People’s Charter”
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comprehensive left agenda for structural change. 

At the presidential level, WFP supported Bernie Sanders in the primary
in 2020 but then pivoted to Joe Biden in the general election. For
WFP, the presidential election “was a door and not a destiny.” It
was essential to coalesce with Democrats and progressive organizations
in a united front against Trumpism. Yet simultaneously, the WFP
continued to support progressive Democrats up and down the ballot,
such as Jessica Cisneros in the Texas 28th Congressional district,
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lost to corporate Democrat Henry Cuellar by less than 300 votes,
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Brooks,
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first third-party candidate elected to the Philadelphia City Council
in a century.

The WFP believes that its considerable success in electing progressive
state and local candidates is a stepping stone to expanding the
party’s influence at the federal level.

Georgia represents another model for grassroots electoral politics
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and outside the state’s Democratic Party. There, Black Voters
Matter, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, New Georgia Action
Fund, and Standing Up for Racial Justice Action aligned with other
grassroots organizations to build upon the foundation
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Stacey Abrams’s run for Governor in 2018. 

Abrams’s New Georgia Project had registered hundreds of thousands of
new Black, brown, AAPI, and youth voters in every county in Georgia
before that election. The campaign relied upon canvassing and
community networks to turn out immigrants and voters of color in
record numbers despite intense voter suppression. The New Georgia
Project and other grassroots organizations supporting Abrams were
independently funded and staffed by experienced organizers, mainly
women of color
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During the 2020 general elections and the 2021 Senate run-offs, these
organizations went door to door in even larger numbers to turn out
their voter base for the Democrats and local progressive candidates.

These organizations had built such a robust electoral infrastructure
that they could accommodate thousands of volunteer canvassers who
poured into the state. The collaboration among these grassroots
organizations pushed the Biden-Harris ticket over the top in November
by less than 1% of the vote. It then secured victory for Democratic
Senate candidates Rafael Warnock and John Ossoff in the January
run-offs. Nsé Ufot of the New Georgia Action Fund noted that “90
percent of the people who showed up to vote in November came back to
vote in January.”

DSA’s experience in the 2020 primaries and general election shows
the challenges of coalition politics. The organization endorsed Bernie
Sanders in early 2019, followed by a “Bernie or Bust” resolution
approved at its August convention. There was robust participation in
the Sanders campaign by DSA volunteers from nearly half the chapters
during the 2020 California, Texas, and Massachusetts primaries.
Nonetheless, the Bernie or Bust resolution meant that DSA could not
support Biden in the general election nor participate in the
anti-Trump united front.

David Duhalde, Vice Chair of the DSA Fund, writes that the resolution
“paralyzed the organization around the general election,” eroded
the DSA’s credibility with allies, and increased internal strife
within DSA. Duhalde suggests that since 2020, through reflection and
internal dialogue, DSA has matured. According to Duhalde, most
supporters of Bernie or Bust now recognize that error and are prepared
to participate in a broad electoral coalition against the Right.
Whether DSA will show up for the federal 2022 mid-terms remains an
open question. 

Progressive organizations should discuss the lessons of 2020 outlined
in _Power Concedes Nothing_. The book is a roadmap for the midterms
and beyond.

_[MARTIN J. BENNETT is Instructor Emeritus of History at Santa Rosa
Junior College and a consultant for UNITE HERE Local 2.]_

_This is a crosspost with DSA Democratic Left Blog
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* Left Electoral Strategy
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* voting
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* elections
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* Grassroots Organizing
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* 2022 Elections
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* 2024 Elections
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* 2020 elections
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* coalition politics
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* left coalition politics
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* Working Families Party
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* WFP
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* DSA
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* Democratic Socialists of America
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* labor electoral policy
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* GOTV
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* swing states
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* progressive organizations
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