Electoral Politics for Organizers

What is “electoral politics”? For some, the purpose is simply to win elections and put “our people” in power. But what opportunities can it present organizers for reshaping the political landscape, developing organizations, and building community? What are some of the subtle or invisible benefits for movements and organizations? Is this only for folks able to knock on doors or can anyone participate? Is there a silo between electoral politics and other forms of organizing?

We hope to begin answering these questions and help deepen the discussion around electoral politics to get more organizers, new and old, on the same page of why this field is essential and how to use it.

The following is based on the experience of Chicago's 33rd Ward Working Families, particularly the leadership of one of its founding members: Kate Barthelme.

Definition Copied!

Electoral politics is about mobilizing voters. This can involve mobilizing registered voters for a government office election or a referendum. In Chicago’s 33rd Ward, it has involved mobilizing residents, regardless of citizenship status, to participate in Ald. Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez’s participatory budgeting program to decide how to spend $1 million of the ward budget.

It can even be as simple as organizing a voter registration drive. Creative approaches to electoral politics can involve providing public education about a given office or referendum that is up for a vote. For example, 33WF held a tabling event at a park to educate parents about the upcoming elections for Chicago’s newly elected school board.

All of these activities engage voters for something while introducing members of a party and/or campaign to non-members. Put another way, it connects political organizers with everyday people.

Platform Copied!

Before a campaign for a candidate begins, it is important to ground it with a political platform. A platform should be democratically discussed within a campaign, ideally involving any organizations interested in collaborating on the campaign. The platform points should be a mixture of “impossible” long-term goals and more attainable short-term goals that build toward the impossible.

Developing the platform collectively and for the long term serves three main purposes.

First, it bridges the time between elections so organizations that bottom-line a given campaign don’t go into a tailspin afterward. The platform points to the things we will continue organizing around, no matter the election outcome. This will distinguish the organizers from other groups that pop up every four years and then disappear. It also makes the platform the connective tissue between movements and elections.

Second, it builds buy-in from members, organizations, and the community who want to fight for the platform. The buy-in is essential as any grassroots campaign will be broke, so people have to feel a genuine commitment to what they are fighting for. Put another way, the platform is less for the voters as it is for the recruits.

If a campaign succeeds in winning an office, the platform can also act as a guard against “lesser-evilism” or “the politics of the possible”. When in office, politicians will be pressured to “go-along to get-along” or “be pragmatic”. In practice, this means watering down or selling out the platform that motivated volunteers to help the politician in the first place. Having something for organizers to point to, to say, “You promised you would fight for this”, can embolden politicians to keep their promises. It can also embolden organizers to reinforce politicians to hold the line despite pressure from their colleagues in office.

Third, part of electoral politics on the left is about building long-term organizations and using them to imagine the world we want. As such, we should be using our organizations to model the government we are fighting for - which is small-d democratic and participatory. Whenever possible, we should set up systems and processes that get members to discuss the issues and then vote on the direction they want the group to take. Platform development and the selection of which issues campaigns to run after an election are good examples of these types of opportunities.

Canvassing Copied!

While protests might centralize people in a city center, bringing people to the protest organizers, US elections primarily involve voting at a local polling place (or increasingly by mail). This means electoral organizers must go to the people and knock on their doors to get them to vote. This is canvassing.

This places organizers in contact with everyday people at their doors. This is distinct from other fields of struggle. For example, protest movements require people to arrive at their own political conclusions and commit to taking action, such as attending a protest that could result in confrontation and arrest. As such, protest movements tend to attract people with a higher level of political education and commitment.

In contrast, the people reached during a canvass have not asked for an election, much less for someone to discuss it with them. Unlike protesters, the people you canvass will have varying levels of commitment to politics and experience with political jargon. Therefore, campaigns learn to translate complex political concepts into everyday conversations with everyday people.

For example, during the 2019 Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez campaign, the issue of crime became a hot topic. As a campaign led by experienced left-wing organizers, we had plenty of talking points against the carceral system. But with an average of 2-5 minutes to speak at someone’s door, Rossana figured out how to reframe the question: what does a safe neighborhood look like?

• Do you feel safer if you know your neighbors? How can you know your neighbors when everyone keeps getting pushed out by higher rents? We need more affordable housing to keep our neighbors here.
• Do you feel safer when your neighborhood school has the staff and supplies to teach your children and keep them occupied with after-school programs? How can your kids receive that kind of attention when our schools keep getting closed or defunded? We need to fully fund our public schools so that every neighborhood school can provide a world-class education.
• All of this and more constitutes the public health of a neighborhood and what we need is to take care of each other rather than throw more money at the police.

This isn’t about moving to the center or dumbing things down. This is translating complex ideas into everyday conversation that can relate to the folks and get them thinking, regardless of their level of political education.

In other words, canvassing trains organizers to learn to meet people where they’re at: both geographically and politically.

Organizing a Canvass Copied!

Some folks may be unable or unwilling to knock doors. But that doesn’t mean they can’t contribute toward the cause. Just like any other event, organizing a canvass requires various pieces of administration for the three phases of the event.

• Days before: doing turnout via calls or texts, designing and publishing social media posts, and designing the necessary literature.
• Right before: preparing the office, preparing materials for canvassers, greeting them with radical hospitality, having coffee and snacks ready, bonding with the volunteers, and training them on talking points.
• After: welcoming them back with more radical hospitality, debriefing them to hear about the good and the bad of how it went, mingling to get to know them and encourage them to come back for the next canvass, cleaning the office, and data entry to record who canvassed and how it went.

For anyone unwilling or unable to canvass, this provides an essential way to contribute.

Canvass Organizing as Community Building Copied!

While canvassers are out building community with neighbors at the doors, the canvass itself is an opportunity for community building with volunteers!

Remember: political organizations need to attract political people and put them into action. The kind of person who hears about a campaign for a socialist or progressive against an entrenched machine candidate, and wants to devote hours of their free time to win the fight, is the kind of person organizers need to cherish. These are our people.

While the people met at the doors probably won’t join an organization, a volunteer canvasser has, much like a protestor, already demonstrated a higher commitment to struggle and is the kind of dedicated person an organization needs to grow and thrive.

It is up to canvass organizers to make these volunteers feel welcome and appreciated before and after a canvass, and want to come back for more canvasses. Throughout a campaign, it is up to organizers to bond with repeat canvassers and win them over to stay after the campaign is over, transitioning from a short-term campaign volunteer to a long-term organizer.

Moreover, election campaigns often attract endorsements from other unions or activist groups. So the activities before and after canvass are also a great chance to build relationships with other organizations. These bonds can last well beyond election season and transition into other collaborative work between elections while strengthening the larger political ecosystem.

Precinct Organizers Copied!

Organizers committed to the electoral field of struggle will eventually have to build a precinct organizer (aka "precinct captain") program. While left-wing organizers are in no position to offer money or jobs, what they can offer is a human connection in a world of hollow parties.

A precinct organizer today is simply a volunteer who is committed to the struggle and is willing to canvass a specific precinct regularly. Ideally, a precinct organizer should live in their precinct, but this isn’t essential. What is essential is becoming a familiar face with those neighbors. By hitting the same doors over and over again, they build up a genuine connection with the neighborhood. This same precinct organizer can mobilize voters, gather signatures, and pass literature at the polling place on election day.

In practical terms, most people vote based on who they know, and who that person is voting for. Precinct organizers become the informed person you know who has a trusted recommendation for election day.

Precinct organizers are also the nucleus of any canvassing operation. All electoral campaigns start slow, attracting very few volunteers at first, if any. Precinct organizers can be trusted to be the first canvassers to hit the doors when a campaign starts, as it gradually attracts new volunteers. New volunteers can then be trained and paired up with precinct organizers to learn how to canvass as well as the politics of the party/campaign.

Foundations for Organizations Copied!

The relationships a campaign builds at the doors and with volunteers will evaporate unless that campaign emerges from, or turns into, an organization. For electoral politics, this means establishing organizations with physical offices in a given area. For example, in Chicago, a city electorally divided into wards, there is a long history of ward organizations.

Some groups, like the Green Party, only appear during election seasons and then disappear. But for the electoral field of struggle to be meaningful, organizations must be built that remain in contact with the community between elections. As demonstrated by ward organizations in Chicago, such as 33rd Ward Working Families, the work between elections is indispensable.

Between elections, groups committed to elections must connect with other organizations like unions, tenant organizers, immigrant rights groups, etc. This helps bond the organization to the community, sharpen its politics, and train its members to organize across various fields of struggle. These experiences can then inform the political platform of future campaigns and help electoral organizers think outside the box when campaigning.

A Party of Our Own Copied!

In the US, political legitimacy is in large part derived from the ability to viably run in elections. By definition, any group of people serious about building a political party (i.e. a group of like-minded people contesting for state power) must be prepared to engage the electoral field of struggle.

Viably running for offices requires building geographic bases, such as ward organizations, capable of doing things like bottom-lining canvasses and building long-term relationships of trust with unions, activist organizations, and communities. Building these things from the bottom-up, from ward to the city, to the state, to the nation, could provide part of a basis for a grassroots party of the working class.

Tilling the Soil Copied!

Whatever an election outcome may be, an electoral campaign can provide important benefits for organizers. The process of sending out canvassers with left-wing talking points begins seeding those politics in the minds of voters. While the mainstream media and politicians are busy drilling “common sense” right-wing talking points, having friendly and approachable canvassers talk to people at the doors provides a counterweight that can gradually shift the politics of a given area. In other words, every campaign helps to normalize left-wing politics.

Let's look at the electoral history of the 33rd Ward as an example.

• Rossana’s 2019 aldermanic campaign gave us a chance a begin tilling the soil in favor of a “public safety is public health” politics
• The 2020 Uprising, and its call to defund the police, found a tangible response in Rossana’s Treament Not Trauma (TNT)
• During the June 2022 elections, Delia Ramirez ran for Congress while Anthony Quezada ran for Cook County Commissioner and both were “smeared” as being pro-Defund but still won their races
• That summer, groups campaigned to get TNT on the ballot as a referendum question in three wards
• Months of canvassing for this referendum resulted in +90% votes in support in November 2022
• This set the stage for Brandon Johnson’s 2023 mayoral campaign, which distinguished itself by being the first and most eager to promote TNT
• The mayor’s race became a referendum on how to approach public safety: Paul Vallas as the law-and-order candidate vs Brandon Johnson as the TNT candidate, which Brandon won in the run-off

The cumulative effect of canvassing for years for candidates and referenda who would not give in to fear-mongering and instead helped push forward tangible programs like TNT reshaped the politics of the area. This was further proven during the 2024 Graciela Guzmán campaign when her opponent, Natalie Toro, deliberately parrotted our “public safety is public health” talking points and avoided public associations with the Fraternal Order of Police. We had so thoroughly tilled the soil that our opponents felt the need to copy us.

Strengths and Weaknesses Copied!

Every field of struggle has its strengths and weaknesses. When engaging in any given field, it is important to have these in mind to help inform whether or not you and your comrades are ready and/or how you will approach it based on your resources.

Strengths:

• Set period: Unlike protest or mutual aid, which may last anywhere from a few weeks to a few years, elections have a definite start and stop. You can plan around future elections, prepare for them, and know exactly when they end. While elections can be intense regarding the amount of time and energy it takes to see them through, it is also possible to remind yourself and your comrades that “we only have to do this for 2 more months!”
• Measurable results: Unlike protest movements, elections have concrete and measurable results to gauge effectiveness and strategize for improvements in the future. You can gauge how many doors were knocked, how many volunteers signed up, how many people committed to voting for your candidate, and contrast that with how many people turned out to vote and the number of votes your candidate/cause received. You can compare candidate/referendum results in your ward vs other wards to map the bigger political trends across a city.
• Leadership development: Campaigns have clearly defined roles, so they are fertile ground for teaching and learning new skills and creating intentional ladders of leadership development. For example, campaigns generally have a campaign manager, field director, volunteer coordinator, fundraising committee chair, communications director, etc. Each of these can be rotated each cycle to ensure that members of the group are getting the skills and experience they are most interested in.

Weaknesses:

• Confusion over expectations: People will project their hopes onto a given election, and feel disappointed when those hopes aren’t met. Key lessons from Chicago’s Brandon Johnson campaign involve setting a clear understanding of what the limits are for a given office, a clear understanding of the limits of the electoral field of struggle by itself, and the need for critical analysis of a candidate in office regardless of whether or not they were “our candidate”. If you fail to set clear expectations or fail to remain critical of the candidate in office: you will likely set up your organization for confusion and demoralization.
• Expensive: An election is one of the most expensive things a grassroots organization can do. Unless there is good reason to expect endorsements from unions, it may be prohibitively expensive to engage in this field. Paying for palm cards, yard signs, office space, and more all add up very quickly. So for folks newly interested in electoral politics, it is better to get your feet wet by getting a referendum on a ballot and then mobilizing to pass it.

Conclusion Copied!

Electoral politics is one field of struggle out of many and none is more/less important than another. A given field’s level of importance is based on context. During election season, when a candidate is available to run or there is a useful referendum to fight for, the electoral field becomes primary. But if there is no viable candidate or referendum, or if it is not an election season, then this field is de-prioritized.

A healthy political ecosystem can develop various organizations, each capable of specializing in a given field of struggle without siloing away from other struggles. For example, an electoral organization should be capable of spending time between elections supporting immigrant rights groups, mutual aid societies, and tenants’ unions. Reciprocally, the electoral organization should be able to turn to these groups for some form of help during elections. The solidarity between groups raises all ships.

Ideally, a political ecosystem could coalesce these relationships into a party of our own.

We also have to remember that winning political office is not a magic wand. The ruling class is against us. The state, which is a tool of the ruling class, is against us. Until a revolutionary moment erupts, our side will always be in the minority in terms of organized forces (i.e. our unions, activist organizations, mutual aid networks versus their military, police, and prisons).

But by combining all fields of struggle, including elections, organizers are capable of leveraging all our organizations and strategic positions (i.e. public offices, workplaces, wards) to organize, prepare, and help lead the masses toward revolution. Finally building toward an end to class rule and the violence of the state.

Special thanks to Kate Barthelme for her contributions to this article, her years of patient mentoring, and for teaching us to organize with love and care.