By Halsey H.

The past decade of the Democratic Socialists of America has been defined by shockingly successful moonshot campaigns that catapulted socialism into national conversation, leaving organizers scrambling to meet the moment without sacrificing their principles. First, we had Bernie’s 2016 presidential campaign and its 2020 encore, and then just a few months ago, Zohran Mamdani shattered expectations with his election as  mayor of New York City. Now, it might be Wisconsin’s turn: MADSA member and State Rep. Francesca Hong announced her bid for Governor at our September General Meeting. Since then, there has been widespread debate in the chapter, but one thing we all seem to agree on: this race could be a huge opportunity for socialists in Wisconsin. The question is – are we ready?

MADSA members have been thinking about this race in the context of our preference for “cadre campaigns,” where we slowly and deliberately build our organization from the ground up by sending candidates into office who are drafted to represent DSA’s politics in office. I believe this is the best strategy for building our independent electoral apparatus, and laying the groundwork for a party – but it’s not the only strategy. In some ways, our relationship to Fran’s campaign might look more similar to the Bernie campaigns, where DSA reverse-engineered a socialist organization out of an electoral campaign. The comet’s going to pass whether we like it or not, and we know people are already watching it. We also know that the only thing that can win socialism is a mass working class organization, so we need to make sure that when people look around with new eyes, they find us and the movement we’re building. That means the question of whether this race will advance the class struggle can only be answered by our ability and willingness to rise to the occasion and build that movement.

In my mind, the decision to get involved in any electoral campaign (or other organizing project) should come back to three simple questions (distilled by comrade Marianela D’Aprile):

1. Does it make more socialists?
2. Does it build the power and organization of the working class? 
3. Does it build the power of DSA? 

I believe that Fran and her campaign team want the answers to be yes, but I don’t think it’s entirely up to them– it’s up to us. There’s a very real chance that we get to live in a world where Fran runs as an extremely open socialist everywhere, endorses all of our downballot candidates, uses her platform to uplift DSA’s priorities, and encourages people to join DSA at campaign events. In that world, we are firing on all cylinders for most of 2026. We’re running her canvasses in Madison and across the state, including in districts where we don’t have enough of a footprint to run downballot candidates, and using them to recruit like crazy – since we’ll be the field leads, and hosting the after-canvass cookouts. We’ll be expanding our membership, expanding and deepening our coalition relationships, and building internal infrastructure – and potentially building toward a statewide DSA legislative campaign. Win or lose, a race like this can change the landscape of WI politics for the better, and build DSA’s capacity to take on state-level policy fights – and other struggles – in the future. Some of it will be on Fran, but a lot of it will come down to whether or not MADSA and our comrades around Wisconsin have the capacity to use this campaign to make more socialists, empower our class, and build our organization.  For the record, I want to be convinced, because I fear the gravitational pull of a statewide race will be too much to resist for the majority of the chapter. We might as well try to get the best endorsement situation we can.

Below I’ve laid out my understanding of the state of the race, our relationship with Fran and her campaign, and the chapter’s strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I propose what an ideal campaign would look like, and what commitments it will take from Fran AND from MADSA to get us there. If we don’t feel like those commitments are possible, then we shouldn’t endorse. If they are, we may very well be foolish not to.

Some context: as the co-chair of the chapter and active member of the Electoral Working Group, I have been privy to many conversations about and with Fran. I have also been involved in several DSA campaigns, including as a DSA rep to a campaign coalition team. There are definitely aspects to this campaign and our political terrain that I don’t have insight into, and I encourage other comrades to elaborate upon or argue with what I’ve laid out here. I do think this reflects the gist of the conversations about Fran’s campaign in EWG, and I hope this will be a useful framework for chapter members thinking about this huge decision in the coming weeks. Thank you to comrades Wesley, Justin, Adithya, Athnie, and others for your contributions!

The Fran We’re Dealt

In assessing this race, it’s helpful to understand MADSA’s current relationship with Fran. It is true that Fran is not a homegrown cadre, drafted by our organization to represent us in the Assembly as part of our political strategy. Despite this, we maintain a positive, but limited, relationship with her, and she behaves in office as we’d hope any socialist would – introducing legislation like the Economic Justice Bill of Rights, elevating the demands of organized labor and social movements, and taking the fight to the Democratic Party when necessary. To be frank, I think the reason we’re so distant is that for most of Fran’s time in office, MADSA hasn’t had the electoral or legislative capacity to build the relationship to the point where it would have been mutually beneficial.

Some background: Fran was elected in 2020 at the top of a crowded field that included at least one other DSA member, Marsha Rummell. (MADSA did not endorse in that race, but did endorse Fran’s current chief of staff, Nada Elmikashfi, for State Senate District 26). After the election, Fran joined DSA. Fran was re-elected in 2022 and again in 2024, which is when MADSA endorsed her for the first time and about when she joined the WI Legislative Socialists Caucus. We didn’t get involved in the field for her 2024 State Assembly race, as she was a popular incumbent with no primary challenger. Instead, we endorsed on paper and threw our weight behind another race that needed more capacity, Maia Pearson’s unsuccessful challenge to incumbent Rep. Shelia Stubbs. I believe it was a mistake not to get more involved in Fran’s campaign, or at least bring her into greater communication with the chapter, as doing so would have given us more opportunities to deepen our working relationship. 

Despite this, she was involved in MADSA’s 2024 priority campaign: Free School Meals for MMSD, and played a crucial role in connecting that local coalition to a state-level one. Occasionally, Fran has attended chapter and working group meetings and participated in DSA events, most notably the YDSA Organizing Fair shortly after the 2024 election, and the Hands Off Medicaid Town Hall earlier this year. We have reason to believe that she’d be willing to have a stronger relationship with us, if our chapter 1) had more capacity – and a strategy – for state-level legislative work and 2) had a formal communication channel with Fran and her office that could keep her in the loop on chapter priorities and facilitate her giving regular reports to MADSA membership. As a popular and highly-motivated activist Assemblywoman, Fran has a lot of political capital – much more than MADSA. She also has a lot of voices in her ear, and unfortunately, we haven’t been strong enough to earn a place amongst the loudest ones. 

Unfortunately, the fact that she has political capital above and beyond MADSA’s means that her decision to run for governor is not an expression of DSA’s democratically-decided strategic priorities. I won’t lie – it’s not ideal that we’re getting involved so late and have so few cadre in the commanding heights of the campaign. As we know from her work in the legislature, Fran is a great fighter, but I think it’s safe to say that this is not a fight MADSA would have picked. If we’d been a factor in Fran’s decision to run for governor, we probably would have come out against it, both because of scale and because of the contradictions inherent to governing as a socialist executive under capitalism. There is a non-zero chance that Fran could win! That does feel like a bridge we’ll have to cross when we come to it, but we do owe it to ourselves to be serious about what that will entail, before the rubber hits the road. If we’re lucky, we can get some progressive stuff done with her as Governor, but there is a real tension implicit in having to govern, as we’re seeing with Zohran in NYC. We need to make sure having a socialist executive won’t backfire or fracture our movement, and see our role as creating the conditions in which a socialist executive can succeed.

My belief is that the strength of any socialist elected depends on the strength of the movement that supports them, their ability to elevate movement demands, and how well they communicate back to the movement about the compromises they are forced to make – because there will be compromises. Even if Fran was the ideal cadre candidate in every conceivable way, there would be decisions she’s forced to make where there’s no good option. If we get involved in this race, we should get realistic about what we hope to achieve on the inside, and where she’ll need movement pressure from the outside – both to advance a popular mandate for socialist transitional demands, and to defend that mandate from the backlash of capitalists and their allies in the state and federal government. 

Can MADSA Meet the Moment?

While the weakness of the relationship with Fran is partially due to the weakness of our chapter in the past, our chapter is in a vastly different place than it was even a year ago. Our membership has nearly doubled since November 2024, and our active membership, though harder to quantify, feels like it’s quadrupled. Dozens of new members are pouring in every month, bringing new ideas, skills, energy, and enthusiasm. New members are taking on new responsibilities, building an increasingly comradely and democratic culture. 

We have a chapter that is committed to the ultimate vision of building an independent socialist party, and an Electoral Working Group eager to expand our electoral machine. And in Madison, we can prioritize non-partisan campaigns on a local level, and focus on a vision of building up cadre candidates — leaders developed through our ranks. Our working group is committed to only recommending endorsements for campaigns where DSA will have a significant impact. That vision has driven some skepticism about Fran’s campaign, since it is 1) a Democratic Party primary in a high-stakes general election 2) not a cadre campaign and 3) would require a massive commitment from the chapter, potentially taking away from other cadre candidates. This skepticism has allowed us to take seriously the opportunities and challenges offered by this race, and given us time to build the relationships we need to make it work.

It has also forced us to take stock of what we have to offer, which at this point in MADSA’s development, could be quite a lot. Thanks in part to our recent local program canvassing, we have at least a dozen people who could be field leads tomorrow, and another dozen who could be running shifts by the end of the month. We have countless more people who could canvass and take on other field volunteer roles, and many who can bottomline town halls, socials, and fundraiser events. This will take a tremendous amount of training and development work, but luckily, we have a strong and constantly improving Membership Engagement Team which is building an onboarding pipeline in conjunction with the Political Education Working Group. We have a good track record of comradely coalition work and connections throughout Madison, and have members with connections to smaller towns and cities across the state, who could help host events, train field teams, and even seed DSA chapters in parts of Wisconsin where we’re still punching below our weight.

While we bring a lot to the table, some things are still in the oven. Our Electoral Working Group was chartered just a few months ago, and although it is doing great work and holding 20+ member meetings on a biweekly basis, the group has quickly borne the stress of increased attention on DSA. We went from having no endorsement procedure to handling endorsements at four different levels of government in mere weeks, and will need to keep learning and adapting to changing circumstances. As of this week, we’re now officially in the process of drafting a 2026 Political Platform to replace the outdated version from 2021, which will hopefully guide our organizing work for the next year and give some direction to our small but growing stable of policy people. We also have a desire to develop a coordinating structure to build on our Endorsed Candidate Expectations and support communication between our endorsed electeds and the chapter, but no concrete plans just yet.

All of that information and organizing infrastructure is still getting built, but the foundation is there, and could grow much stronger if we get involved in Fran’s campaign at a high level and bring all of that experience back into the chapter. Both our program/policy work and nascent SIOC team can also help us build a stronger relationship with Milwaukee DSA and other WI DSA chapters, to the point where we could lead the adoption of a Wisconsin DSA Platform and build campaigns around shared statewide priorities. A statewide race is the perfect foundation for that kind of Wisconsin-wide coordination, and would help us build the organizing relationships we’ll need if and when Fran wins the election (and if she loses, too).

The State of Play

It’s been a long few months since Fran first announced her candidacy for Governor, and some of the chapter’s initial apprehension seems to have shifted. Fran has a new campaign manager who is a DSA member, and seems to be drawing a lot of her high-level team from Milwaukee DSA. Several MADSA members are also involved in their capacity as individuals. As a result, we’re seeing improvements in her messaging around “democratic socialism,” which now has pride of place on the front page of her website. There definitely could be a greater emphasis on DSA and recruitment to DSA in her campaign comms, but signs are promising that she’d be willing to work with us to shape her messaging. She has expressed to both Milwaukee and Madison DSA that she’s interested in getting us involved in field organizing in a big way, and sees us a key potential partner in her campaign.

There are also some external forces that may be affecting some of the positive developments, and could continue to push this campaign more into “socialist tribune” territory. The race is almost comedically stacked with good-enough, labor-friendly, progressive-ish Wisconsin Democrats, and the entrance of Mandela Barnes – a classic “progressive except for Palestine” who’s running like he’ll run away with the primary despite his reputation as a loser – makes it even easier for Fran to distinguish herself as not just another progressive, but the true fighter for Palestine and the only unapologetic socialist. To really take advantage of that opening, Fran needs to run like she’s not afraid to lose – because the way the winds are blowing, that’s the only way to win. If she positions herself hard against the establishment and ready to take the battle to both the Republicans who want to flood our state with masked ICE agents and the Democratic Party establishment that doesn’t have any solution for that or just about anything else, she can win over broad swaths of working class Wisconsinites who are sick of business as usual.

With these positive developments, it is looking more likely that the campaign will be ripe with opportunities for socialists in Madison and Wisconsin to build our capacities. Specifically, it opens up avenues to 

1) coordinate and collaborate with other DSA chapters around Wisconsin

2) recruit and develop leaders in communities where we don’t have a strong presence yet, through field work and through building coalition relationships with other organizations involved in the campaign 

3) shore up our policy knowledge, deepen our working relationship with the WI Legislative Socialists, and help us develop our state-level electoral/legislative strategy

4) build up our campaigning capacity for future electoral and other work

5) and above all, to articulate a socialist politics and a vision for our state that speaks to the needs of working-class Wisconsinites.

Playing Our Hand 

Now that we know what cards we’re holding, we need a gameplan. It’s up to the chapter to iron out what our involvement in the campaign could look like, but I think it’s shaping up like this:

• MADSA grinds to deliver Madison for Fran and builds a city-wide base for her key campaign demands, on the strength of issue-forward slate canvasses for Fran and our downballot candidates 
• DSA chapters cohere a statewide DSA network to coordinate around the Fran campaign, and work toward an in-person WI DSA conference. That network will:
  • Go absolutely beast mode on field in towns and cities around the state
  • Train up DSA field leads where we have chapters, and send experienced organized to seed and mentor chapters where we don’t
  • ID campaign volunteers to recruit to DSA
  • Host & run town halls on the key issues, and use them to identity volunteers and local leaders & help sharpen our messaging 
• WI DSA can think about what kinds of campaigns we can lead around issues where Fran’s platform overlaps with ours. If we have that vision in place well before the election, we can bring leaders we meet and develop through the campaign into that work long-term, whether as DSA members or coalition partners.

I’ve said that the ball is mostly in MADSA’s court, but there are definitely some things we need from Fran and her team to make this possible. At a basic level, that looks like her promoting DSA somewhat regularly, and getting some MADSA people getting involved at a high level in the campaign (especially in field but also in comms, fundraising, etc.). We also need her to commit to endorsements for our down-ballot races, so we can campaign for them as a slate and do joint canvasses in Madison and Milwaukee. Finally, it would be great if we could get Fran to do a little political education work with us while on the trail and in office. Hopefully we can come to a shared understanding of what DSA needs and wants from this campaign, and get everyone, including Fran, bought into the idea that DSA can and will throw down if we think we’re building socialism, but will also work very hard to keep the class struggle on track.

Can we Make Better Possible?

I’ve laid out what I think MADSA’s involvement in this race should look like in an ideal world, and what we need from Fran to make it possible. Now I want to lay out concretely what I think we need to put into this race in order to get out what we need from it. 

First, we need to make sure our heads are in the game. We need the whole chapter locked in on being serious, curious, adaptable, and comradely, and thoroughly committed to constructive communication and organizational democracy. Getting involved in a high-profile race like this means a lot of people are going to be circling us, joining, and wanting a piece of what we have to offer. We need to keep our eyes on the prize (socialism!) and make sure that we’re not falling for any opportunistic pitfalls. This will take rigorous planning and creative problem-solving. Internally, we’ll need to set up a democratic structure that can hold the relationship with Fran and the campaign, but not too close to the chest. There should be opportunities for rank and file MADSA members to get involved in the campaign coordinating structure we develop. This will make this project successful, and can help us lay the groundwork for more democratic, accountable relationships with our member-electeds in the future.

Secondly, we need to be ready to grind. This campaign only works if we are all in, and have a large proportion of the chapter ready to do the work – not just canvassing, but learning how to lead canvasses and phonebanks, cut turf, run events, fundraise, and do campaign comms. Having people learn those skills will build up our chapter’s capacity for future fights, but will also take countless hours of chapter member time away from other things we could be doing. If our members, and especially our electorally-inclined members and leaders, are not excited to do that work, they should say so, so we don’t overpromise and underdeliver. We’ll also need to be everywhere all the time, and be representing DSA in a positive way in coalition spaces, at canvass kickoffs, at campaign socials, and at the doors – and then, we’ll need to be identifying potential recruits like crazy and making sure our follow-up game is on point. This campaign gives us a great opportunity to talk to people in Madison and around the state who haven’t heard of DSA, and may be outside of our usual recruitment circles, and we should make sure we’re bringing them into a healthy and welcoming chapter with lots of ways to get plugged in. On top of the campaign work, we’ll need a summer of socials, trainings, and political education. 

We also need to invest in our relationship with Milwaukee DSA and other WI chapters, and make sure we’re building member-to-member social ties and space for political discussion and creative collaboration, not just top-down coordinating bodies. A centralizing priority with such high stakes will be a great opportunity to do any repair work that needs to be done, and to start to articulate what a statewide DSA Program could look like. 

Finally, we need to get aligned internally – or at least start the conversation – about what we want to see from Fran’s administration, and who we’d like to see in it. We need a sense of what we think we can accomplish with a woman on the inside, and what issues we expect to have to push her on from the outside.

That’s a lot to think about, but luckily, we have some time. As of today, Fran is still in the petitioning process, and will have a questionnaire, an interview, and another candidate forum for her to tell us what she thinks. At the same time, we need to be talking amongst ourselves about what we think we can realistically deliver, how much we’re willing to sacrifice to do it, and whether we think it’s worth it in order to make more socialists, grow DSA, and build the power of the working class to defeat capitalism and win social, economic, and political democracy for all. I believe in our chapter’s democracy and our ability to make a strong, empowered, democratic decision about this endorsement, and I look forward to continued discussions about this over the weeks and months to come.