“we should make it clear that the Socialist Party wants the votes only of those who want socialism, and that, above all, as a revolutionary party of the working class, it discountenances vote-seeking for the sake of votes and holds in contempt office-seeking for the sake of office. These belong entirely to capitalist parties with their bosses and their boodle and have no place in a party whose shibboleth is emancipation.”
– Eugene V. Debs
With the conclusion of the 2026 midterm elections we can definitively say republicans have been rebuked by the overwhelming majority of US voters. In Virginia there are almost 6.5 million eligible voters, but only about half of those participated. It will come as no surprise that the base of support for the three state amendments (abortion rights, marriage equality, voting rights for felons) and democratic candidates were concentrated in the Golden Crescent while the republican strongholds remained in southwestern Virginia.
The votes cast – just as in 2024 – were more so a rejection of the incumbent administration rather than an enthusiastic support of the opposition party. Both parties remain unpopular. US workers want a real alternative to the corporate duopoly. The waters have been muddied by the democratic socialists of America, who function as the leftwing of the capitalist democratic party. There were only two exceptions to this with DSA candidates Brittney Kubicek in Rhode Island and Ben Davis in Indiana running for the offices of state representative as independent socialists. Kubicek won 22% of the vote against a democrat incumbent, while Davis only won 2.4% of the vote in a threeway race between himself and the democrat and republican candidates.
Independent socialists also ran under the banners of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, the Working Class Party, the Workers Party of Massachusetts, and the Workers Voice Party. One of the more controversial campaigns – Gregory Levy of the PSL – had to contend with republican dark money efforts which sent out mailers on his behalf to function as a “spoiler candidate” against Ohio democrat politician Sherrod Brown for the US senate. Levy received over 84,000 votes (or 2% of the vote), but finished fourth against democrat, republican and libertarian candidates. Both the republicans and democrats were guilty of using the PSL and libertarian candidates as “spoilers” to siphon votes off from their main opposition. This type of sleazy maneuvering is to be expected from the capitalist parties, quantity is always above quality.
PSL also had two other candidates running – Joe Tache for US senate in Massachusetts and Andre Easton for New York house of representative in district 15. Tache received 7% of the vote while Easton received 8.6%.
The Working Class Party had several candidates run across the states of Michigan, Illinois, and Maryland. WCP’s Ed Hershey ran for US house of representative in Illinois’ district 4, receiving 3.4% of the vote in a fourway race. Cathy White received 2% of the vote for Maryland’s gubernatorial election – also in a fourway race. Andrea Kirby received 1.1% of the vote for Michigan’s house of representative in district 10 in a fiveway race, placing her above the libertarian and green candidates. Gary Walkowicz also ran for Michigan house of representative in district 12, receiving .8% of the vote while losing to DSA candidate Rashida Tlaib. WCP’s Mary Anne Hering ran for Michigan’s state board of education, receiving 1.1% of the vote in a very crowded field. For the Working Class Party most of its candidates experienced a worse performance than their 2024 candidacies. Some of that can be attributed to the lack of candidacies by the greens in 2024 vs having more green challengers in 2026.
The Workers Party of Massachusetts ran two candidates – Devin Kreinbring and Andrew Nelson. Kreinbring ran for state house of representative in the 10th Suffolk district, where he received 9% of the vote against his democrat opponent. Nelson ran for state house of representative in the 2nd Bristol district, receiving 25% of the vote against his democrat opponent. The WPM notably endorsed PSL’s candidate Tache and has put out the call to form a united front to support all independent socialist candidates across Massachusetts. Workers Voice ran one candidate in Connecticut – Rosa Pepper-Macias – for Connecticut state senate in district 11. She received 10% of the vote against her democrat opponent.
In the commonwealth of Virginia there was only one independent socialist candidate – Jason Brown II – running for US house of representative in district 4 against democrat incumbent Jennifer McClellan. Unfortunately Brown didn’t receive the minimum number of signatures to qualify for ballot access and had to withdraw from the race. After our endorsement of Brown II we sought endorsements on his behalf from other socialist organizations across the state, including the DSA, PSL, CPUSA, Liberation Road, the Communist League of Richmond, as well as adjacent organizations in the Southern Workers Assembly chapters, and other unions. Our efforts came up empty handed, pointing towards a default sectarianism among groups, while some eschewing “electoralism” altogether. We also are left wondering, due DSA’s proximity to the democrat party, that an independent socialist candidate challenging a Richmond-based democrat incumbent might sour DSA’s relations to local democrat committees. Only the Tidewater DSA chapter even bothered to offer their potential candidate questionnaire to Brown II as all other Virginia DSA chapters shot down the idea of endorsement.
While the DSA claims victory with its candidates winning as democrats, this in no way offers the ability to assess how much US workers are actually embracing socialism. So long as the idea of socialism remains tied to the capitalist democrat party – an idea actively promoted by republicans – we are in no better position to build a revolutionary independent working class movement or party. Of course the proponents of the DSA electoral line will point to the weak performance of independent socialist candidacies, but these candidacies are a much better indicator of where the present state of class consciousness is or isn’t among US workers. Finding hard figures on working class participation in elections is difficult as bourgeois sociologists often use education level as a substitute for working class status. One study finds that the lower the income level, the lower the voter participation rate. The ultra-left has used this as an excuse to engage in political abstention, claiming that the majority of US workers essentially boycott elections because they have no representation in the US political system. Some within this milieu will go so far as to say the real political struggle is on the economic terrain/in the workplace/on the streets and outside the voting booths.
We are stuck between left-opportunism and right-opportunism on the question of revolutionary parliamentarism. Marxists have always advocated the use of the ballot with the explicit qualification it is done so through an independent class party. As we can see above, that basic position is only being realized in a partial, scattered manner between state-level socialist organizations and national sects. The task of party-building remains at the forefront and the issue of sectarianism is one of the primary obstacles holding us back from accomplishing this goal. We are not simply promoting ballot access for a workers party with the hopes of achieving socialism through elections and reforms. The ballot box is just one means of agitating and propagandizing to the US working class on its historic task of taking state power by smashing the capitalist state and beginning the task of socialist construction. Elections are only supplementary to mass action by the working class to win revolutionary reform, not the main thrust of political power as many in the DSA would lead us to believe.
Had Virginia socialists cohered around Brown II’s candidacy we could have not only secured their ballot access, but posed a real challenge to democrat incumbent McClellan’s seat. As small as the socialist left is in Virginia there are enough of us across the state to cohere behind a single independent socialist candidate. It’s not a question of material obstacles, but a lack of gumption holding us back.
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