Electoral Politics from Below: Campaign, Base, and Voters

In any class society, the dominant ideas are those which serve the ruling class. In a capitalist democracy, concepts about how electoral campaigns should function will reflect the needs and experiences of the ruling class. It is only natural that when the US Left embraced electoral politics, in the aftermath of Bernie’s 2016 campaign, it also absorbed many of the ruling class’ perspectives regarding electoral politics.

Based on the concrete experience of electoral campaigns in Chicago, from 2018-2022, I’d like to outline various concepts we’ve inherited from the ruling class and contrast them with what we’ve learned in practice.

“A political platform has to appeal to voters.” Copied!

Obviously, a platform has to be relevant, based on current issues. But mainly, a platform should be based on current movements. The reason being that a platform should primarily be used to inspire and mobilize volunteers. The volunteers then mobilize the voters. Remember, voters themselves are extremely fickle. 8 years of Bill Clinton were followed by 8 years of George Bush Jr, followed by 8 years of Barack Obama, then 4 years of Trump. In other words, voters are inconsistent. Conversely, political volunteers tend to be politically stable. Many of the people helping organize protests in solidarity with Gaza in 2023 are the same people that were doing the same in 2006, for example. Where voters are fickle, organizers tend to be consistent.

Recruiting committed organizers is essential because grassroots electoral campaigns, by definition, can never outspend our competition. Instead, we have to rely on volunteers. But electoral campaigns are long, exhausting ordeals with a high likelihood of failure. In places like Chicago, they are also frigid. In order for people to willingly volunteer for a long, exhausting, and frigid ordeal: they have to really believe in the campaign. Since most people are politically inspired by movements (i.e. Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, the 2020 Uprising, etc.), then any grassroots campaign has to tap into the politics of those movements.

This has the advantage of appealing to voters that are already sympathetic to given struggles, and also pulling in individual volunteers that are already battle-tested within those struggles. Better yet, movement-based platforms can attract entire organizations that participated in those movements: like teachers unions, socialist groups, feminist groups, etc.

Grassroots volunteers will go out to people’s doors and win them over to the politics of the campaign, shifting the politics of an area that has been repeatedly canvassed gradually to the left. In other words, the volunteers can help reshape the political landscape and shift political debate in ways that paid advertisements and paid canvassers simply can’t.

Just think of the way that the combination of the 2020 Uprising and years of left-wing organizing in Chicago led to major defeats for pro-cop candidates, and landslide victories for perceived “defund” candidates, on June 28 and November 8 2022, as well as the +90% approval for Treatment Not Trauma, and the successful passing of the Pretrial Fairness Act. This was the result of movements and canvassers re-shaping public opinion in spite of constant, racist, fear-mongering about crime on TV, radio, and social media.

So the question isn’t, “what kind of platform will appeal to voters”? It is, “what kind of platform will appeal to left-wing volunteers and organizations who will then go out and win over voters”?

“A politician is accountable to all their constituents.” Copied!

Obviously, a politician in a seat that has any administrative duties must fulfill those duties for everyone in their jurisdiction. For example, a Chicago alderman needs to keep ward services functioning across the ward. But again, when it comes to political questions, voting patterns, etc: the politician is primarily accountable to the people who volunteered for them.

The problem being that all the constituents for a given politician will, by definition, have heterogeneous political ideas that range the entire political spectrum. It would be impossible to keep everyone politically happy, constantly betraying one camp to please the other. Rather than worrying about how to be accountable to all constituents, a politician has to remember who got them into office in the first place, who will defend them while they’re in office, and who will get them re-elected: the base that originally mobilized for them.

If a grassroots campaign lives or dies based on the ability to mobilize volunteers, then a politician’s behavior in office has to reinforce the volunteer’s trust. If someone campaigns on a platform based on movement demands, but then goes on to betray those movements while in office, then they’re unlikely to re-mobilize that base. In which case, they’ll have to either find a new, more conservative base, or flounder. Alternately, they’ll have to indoctrinate the base to follow them in spite of betraying them.

Every politician’s primary calculation must be: “Who is my base? Who will I need to knock doors for me, for free, in the next election? What do they need to hear/see from me so they feel good volunteering?” That's the main calculation that matters.

So a politician isn’t accountable to all constituents, but to the volunteers and organizations that got them elected.

“In elections: winning is everything.” Copied!

Obviously, when anyone engages in any struggle (i.e. elections, unionizing, protesting, mutual aid, etc.) they should aim to win. But we can’t fall into the bourgeois deception that we hear every four years: “this is the most important election of our lives”, “this year, democracy itself is on the ballot”, etc. Life goes on after every election.

To be clear, everyone does love a winner. But if winnability was what mattered most, then people would only join a campaign after it had won. Winnability isn’t what inspires people: it’s the desire to pick a fight. Struggle itself is what activates people that would otherwise stay on the sidelines. This is true of movements just as it is for elections.

The idea that “winning is everything” is not only false, but also dangerous. It can lead some campaigns to hide or sell out their politics, in the hopes that they will appeal to a wider swath of voters, causing them to forget that it's the volunteers that they need to appeal to. It can also lead campaigns to make alliances with toxic people or groups in the misguided hopes that these toxic characters will provide them support, without realizing that such alliances can erode trust from the volunteer base.

The reality is that elections will come and go, they will be won and lost. But elections, like all forms of struggle, are ultimately about one thing: getting people organized. If you organize a protest, build a union, or set up mutual aid: you meet people, build trust together, and trade contact info. Elections are no different. Whether or not you win an election, you need to build trust with, and keep in contact with, the people you meet. Ideally pulling them into an organization or working with them to form an organization.

In 2015, Tim Meegan ran for alderman in Chicago’s 33rd ward. While the campaign lost, it was able to inspire so many core volunteers and get so close to a runoff, that the volunteers decided to form a ward organization: 33rd Ward Working Families (33WF). Instead of being demoralizing, the electoral defeat led to organizational inspiration. 33WF has gone on to work with other organizations in the ward to help with immigration defense, tenant defense, and much more. All of this culminated in the election of Rossana Rodriguez as 33rd ward alderwoman in 2019. Since then, she won re-election in February 2023, and we’re now on the campaign trail for Rossana, Graciela Guzman, and Delia Ramirez for the March 2024 elections.

So winning isn’t everything in elections. Meeting people and getting them organized is the priority. That kind of priority paradoxically makes it more likely to build the kind of campaign and organization that can win.

Conclusion Copied!

The common thread running through these observations is that there is a distinction between an electoral campaign, the base of that campaign (the individual volunteers and volunteer organizations), and the voting electorate.

For any successful campaign the priority needs to be building out the base, inspiring them, and keeping their trust. In turn, that base will win over and mobilize the voters. This base is also both the group that a politician is accountable to and the group that should help politicians in decision-making. In other words, maintaining the trust of this base should take priority over all other relationships.

Win or lose, prioritizing the building of this base is what will persist beyond individual election cycles, and ultimately help us build a political party of our own.

This was originally published in Midwest Socialist as Busting Bourgeois Election Myths and re-published with permission. The article has been updated since the original publishing.