Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Originally founded in 1982 through the merger of two existing left-wing groups, the DSA was closely associated with socialist activist Michael Harrington during its early years. It initially had approximately 6,000 members, which reached as high as 10,000 in the early 1990s before dropping to about 6,500 in late 2014. ⁵

The combination of self-described democratic socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign and the election of Republican Donald Trump as president later that year drove significant membership growth at the DSA, which continued after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) won the 2018 Democratic primary in New York’s 14th congressional district as an open DSA member. ⁶ Membership grew to 32,000 in 2017 and 55,000 in 2018, before peaking at 95,000 in 2021. ² As of 2025, the DSA claimed “over 80,000 members.” ³

The DSA espouses numerous left-of-center to radical-left policy positions that include the abolition of police and prisons and the release of all people “from involuntary confinement”; the total elimination of conventional energy sources such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas; the abolition of the U.S. Senate; and enfranchising non-citizens in U.S. elections. It advocates for the replacement of capitalism with a centrally planned economy in which most sectors are government-run and in which wealth is compulsorily redistributed through high levels of taxation, government distribution of goods and services, and reparations. ⁷

The DSA is hostile toward Israel, to the point where the organization has been accused of antisemitism. ^{8 9} Anti-Israel activism became a core part of the DSA’s work after the group voted to officially support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement in 2017. The DSA was strongly criticized for its response to the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, which was widely seen as an attempt to justify the violence against Israeli civilians. ¹⁰ Several prominent DSA members, including U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI), publicly resigned from the organization over its response to the attacks. ¹¹

The DSA is governed by a 25-member national political committee, elected every two years. In 2023, a majority of those elected to the national political committee came from the DSA’s left wing, and at least five represented internal DSA ideological caucuses that were explicitly revolutionary Marxist and/or communist. ⁷

As of August 2023, the DSA claimed that more than 200 of its members held elected office nationwide. ¹² As of November 2023 there were four members of the U.S. House of Representatives who belonged to the DSA: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Greg Casar (D-TX). ¹¹

In May 2024, the DSA published a blog post by member Curtis Robinson criticizing Rep. Ocasio Cortez’s voting record on Israel and her “unwavering loyalty to the Democratic Party.” In June 2024, the DSA released a statement claiming it would only endorse Rep. Ocasio-Cortez if she stated her opposition to “all funding of Israel,” voiced support for BDS, and met several other agenda items. By July 2024, the national DSA withdrew its endorsement of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez due to her failure to meet its demands, although the New York City DSA chapter kept its endorsement in place. ^{13 14 15}

In June 2025, then-DSA-NYC member and New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) won the Democratic mayoral primary election. The DSA endorsed Mamdani, with the New York branch of the DSA taking credit for his victory. ^{16 17 18}

History

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) was founded in 1982 through the merger of two existing organizations: the New American Movement and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. Influential socialist Michael Harrington was the single most important individual involved in both establishing the DSA and leading it during its early years. ⁵

The Origins of the DSA

The New American Movement had been founded in 1971 as a successor to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which had imploded amid internal factional strife in 1969. Considered an outgrowth of the New Left movement, the New American Movement emphasized the importance of socialism to the future of the United States and the need to integrate feminism into all aspects of this activism. At its height, it had fewer than 1,500 members nationwide. ¹⁹

The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee was created in 1973, out of a faction from the recently dissolved Socialist Party of America that had been led by Michael Harrington. A socialist activist since the early 1950s, Harrington had been involved with Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker Movement and also was an organizer for the Workers Defense League. He joined the Independent Socialist League of Max Shachtman, a former Trotskyist whose politics had since drifted toward democratic socialism, and Harrington was put in charge of the group’s youth wing. The Independent Socialist League dissolved in the late 1950s, and many of its former members joined the Socialist Party of America. Harrington was elected to the Socialist Party’s national executive committee in 1960 and edited the party’s official newspaper. ²⁰

Harrington was also involved in the League for Industrial Democracy, whose youth wing reformed itself into SDS in 1960, and in that capacity he attended SDS’s founding convention at Port Huron, Michigan in 1962. Harrington was reported to have been deeply troubled by the resulting “Port Huron Statement”  because he believed the manifesto’s language was not sufficiently anti-communist. Harrington, who was older than the other SDS convention attendees, later explained that his experience as a socialist activist during the 1950s had made his personal anticommunism “not simply a theory, but an emotion as well.” The younger activists could not understand this, and Harrington wrote that “my notion of a progressive, Leftist anti-Communist made as much existential sense to them as a purple cow.” ²¹

Also in 1962, Harrington published an examination of poverty in the United States called The Other America, which was reportedly influential on the anti-poverty efforts of the Kennedy administration. In 1964 he began working with the Johnson administration’s task force on poverty led by Sargent Shriver. He remained active as a leader within the Socialist Party of America throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, until the party split apart in 1972. ²²

Harrington believed that socialists should work within the Democratic Party and attempt to realign its politics to the left. His approach to socialist activism has been characterized as “anti-Communist, friendly to liberals, sympathetic to religion, willing to work within the system, [and] nose turned up at the extremism of SDS.” ²³

Harrington supported Democrat George McGovern for president in the 1972 election, and envisioned one day forming a winning political coalition through uniting the constituencies of the “three Georges”—McGovern’s liberals, AFL-CIO president George Meany’s northern blue-collar union workers, and Alabama governor George Wallace’s southern blue-collar populists. He formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee in 1973, which counted among its early members both labor union leaders and Democratic Party activists. ²⁴

In 1982 the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee merged with the New American Movement to form the DSA, ⁵ and the new group held its first national convention in October 1983. Harrington and Barbara Ehrenreich were elected as co-chairs, while the DSA’s vice chairs included then-U.S. Representative Ron Dellums (D-CA), former Communist Party USA activist Dorothy Ray Healey, then-D.C. council member Hilda Mason, and then-International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers president William Winpisinger. ²⁵ Among those elected to the DSA’s national executive committee at its second convention in 1985 were Harrington, Ehrenreich, and socialist academics Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West. ²⁶

During the 1984 Democratic presidential primaries, DSA members were divided over whether to support Jesse Jackson or eventual nominee and former Vice President Walter Mondale. However, the DSA was an early endorser of Jackson’s second campaign in 1988, which it considered to be “the first truly multiracial, (implicitly) social democratic one in U.S. history.” ⁵

Cold War Anti-Communism and Kurt Stand

In his 1988 book Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, historian Harvey Klehr wrote that the DSA had “continuously denounced Marxism-Leninism and those regimes founded on its principles,” and that it was “committed to democratic values and democratic society.” ²⁷ After the collapse of communism in Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many DSA members were disappointed that the formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe that had been under the influence of the Soviet Union gravitated toward Western-style free market capitalism rather than embracing what the DSA called “socialism with a human face.” ⁵

Michael Harrington died in 1989, and the DSA has speculated that the organization might have grown more substantially after the collapse of communism if he had lived “to articulate, in accessible language, why the collapse of an authoritarian system that democratic socialists had always opposed did not refute the socialist project.” ²⁸

Nevertheless, there were those within the DSA who actively supported the Eastern Bloc. Kurt Stand, an activist with the Metro DC chapter of the DSA, was convicted in October 1998 of multiple espionage-related offenses for having spied on behalf of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Russia, and South Africa. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Stand was described in media reports as a “devoted” Marxist-Leninist who had begun spying in the 1970s and continued until 1997. ^{29 30} He was released from federal prison in 2012. ³¹

Stand was a longtime member of the DSA and held high-ranking leadership positions within the organization. In an open letter written from prison, he explained that he had joined the DSA soon after it was founded in 1982, and felt that the group “was taking steps on the right path toward finding a way to make an open socialist presence meaningful in contemporary U.S. society.” ³² He was listed as an elected member of the DSA’s national political committee for the 1994-1995 term, ³³ and again for the 1996-1997 term. ³⁴ After he was released from prison, Stand continued his affiliation with the DSA’s Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America chapter. He has appeared at conferences on behalf of the chapter, and authored articles for its Washington Socialist publication. ^{35 36}

Bernie Sanders Campaign and Membership Growth

At the time of its founding in 1982 the DSA had about 6,000 members, of whom 5,000 had come from the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and 1,000 from the New American Movement. By the early to mid-1990s, it had approximately 10,000 members, though this dropped to 6,500 by late 2014. As of 2012, the DSA had approximately ten “moderately strong” local chapters and about the same number of college or university groups. At that time, most DSA members were reportedly either younger than 25 or older than 60. ²⁸

Maurice Isserman, a founding member of the DSA, explained that “the 1980s were not the most promising decade to launch a new venture on the left. Nor were the 1990s, or the first decade of the 21st century much better. DSA, which fluctuated between 5,000 and 6,000 members over those years, was much larger than the purist sects further to its left who generally counted memberships in the hundreds. But DSA was still small. And aging.” ³⁷

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who described himself as a democratic socialist but was not a member of the DSA, ³⁸ formally announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination in April 2015. ³⁹ Though the DSA did not consider Sanders’ platform to be sufficient to “fulfill the socialist aim of establishing worker and social ownership of the economy,” it still saw him as “sufficiently radical and inspiring” and made the decision to support his forthcoming campaign in late 2014. The unexpected success of Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign drove significant growth at the DSA. Individuals who searched for information about “democratic socialism” on the internet often found the DSA’s website.  ⁴⁰

The DSA declined to endorse the eventual 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. ⁴¹ Approximately 1,000 people reportedly joined the organization on the day after Donald Trump was elected president, and over 13,000 total joined between November 9, 2016 and July 1, 2017. ⁴⁰ The combination of Sanders’ campaign and Trump’s election has been described as the “one-two punch” that drove exponential growth at the DSA. ³⁸ In 2018, DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated then-U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley (D-NY) in the Democratic primary election for New York’s 14th congressional district.  Her victory was widely credited with further raising the DSA’s public profile, ⁴² and reportedly led to the largest single-day membership gain in the organization’s history. ³⁸

The DSA again supported Sen. Sanders when he ran for president a second time in 2020. The group organized and paid for a campaign called Democratic Socialists for Bernie, though it also clarified that much of what Sanders was proposing was not actually what the DSA considered true socialism. ⁴³ Still, the DSA highlighted ten core issues upon which it based its support for his presidential campaign: ⁴⁴

• Medicare for All
• A Green New Deal for All
• Good Jobs for All
• Education for All
• Housing for All
• Equality for All
• End Mass Incarceration
• End Wall Street Greed
• End the Wars
• End Anti-Worker Trade Deals

After Sanders suspended his second presidential campaign in the spring of 2020, the DSA released a statement explaining that it would not be endorsing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee because “his differences with Sanders and the broader left could not be starker.” ⁴⁵ Nevertheless, numerous DSA members organized against the re-election of then-President Donald Trump, reasoning that his defeat “would be unequivocally better for the working class and for our movement. ⁴⁶

In 2015, the DSA claimed approximately 6,200 members. By 2017, the group claimed membership had grown to 32,000, and by 2020 it had reached 87,000. Membership peaked in 2021 at 95,000, after which it dropped to 83,000 in 2022 and 78,000 in 2023. ²

Post-2024 Growth and Campaign Support Strategies

In April 2026, an article by City Journal alleged that the DSA was adopting a “Soros model” to focus its advocacy towards supporting races at the local level (“city councils, state assemblies, and state senates”) as opposed to candidates at the federal level. Examples used in the article include a growth of local chapters (225 chapters as of 2025), a growth of membership (nearly 78,000 by 2021), and its support for NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani during his campaign. The report also alleges that as of 2026 DSA-backed candidates hold “250 local political positions across the 50 states…[including] 96 city councilors and county commissioners, in addition to eight mayors, county executives, and town supervisors.” ⁴⁷

In June 2026, an article by Axios discussed Janeese Lewis George winning the Democrat primary for Washington D.C mayor and likely becoming the next mayor starting in January 2027. The article also commented that by November 2026, additional candidates running for seats on the D.C council that could win include “democratic socialists Aparna Raj (Ward 1) and Oye Owolewa (at-large) and progressive Elissa Silverman (at-large).” ⁴⁸ The article also argues Lewis George’s “coalition” on the council could increase to 7 seats out of 13 in 2027 by trying” to fill Lewis George’s Ward 4 seat and the at-large seat of Congress-bound Robert White.” ⁴⁸ According to the article, several campaign promises Lewis George ran on include “Lowering utility costs through “expanding government solar,”” “capping any family’s child care expenses to 7% of their income,” and “expanding the city’s existing subsidy.” ⁴⁸

Political Positions

The Democratic Socialists of America claims to be the largest socialist organization in the United States, and generally promotes a far-to-radical-left political ideology. ¹ It describes its vision of socialism as one “based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships.” ⁴⁹ Individual DSA members hold a variety of political views that range from reform socialism to revolutionary communism. ⁵⁰

In 2018, then-DSA national director Maria Svart explained socialism in the following way during an interview with National Public Radio (NPR): “Let’s say you were negotiating at a bargaining table with workers in a bakery, and the workers said, ‘Look, we want more than a quarter of the bread; we want half of the bread, or we want two-thirds of the bread,’ the socialist would say, ‘Actually, we want the bakery. We want to control it all, for all of our benefit.’” ⁵¹

2021 Political Platform

In 2021, the DSA officially adopted a detailed political platform, organized into ten topical categories. The preamble stated that “in overcoming the old, barbaric order of capitalism, the working class will not only liberate itself from its own shackles, but all of humanity from the parasitic death-drive of capitalism.”  ⁵²

The “Deepening and Strengthening Democracy” category included a call for a second constitutional convention in the United States to establish “a new socialist democracy,” and specifically proposed abolishing the U.S. Senate and Electoral College, adding additional seats to the U.S. Supreme Court “to break the countermajoritarian conservative majority,” allowing noncitizens and convicted criminals to vote, and transitioning to a parliamentary electoral system. ⁵³

The “Abolition of the Carceral State” category asserted that “the tools of our opposition, enforcing our exploitation and oppression under capitalism, are the repressive forces of the state.” It called for the total abolition of police and prisons and the release of “all people from involuntary confinement.” It also demanded the abolition of misdemeanor offenses and all fines and fees associated with the criminal justice system, the decertification of police unions and their expulsion from labor federations, the repeal of all truancy laws, and a prohibition against schools suspending or expelling troublesome students. ⁵⁴

The “Abolition of White Supremacy” category linked “the fictions of whiteness” to the development of capitalism in the Western Hemisphere, and argued that “we cannot meaningfully combat capitalism without combating white supremacy and vice versa.” It included specific demands for race-based reparations to be paid at the federal, state, and local government levels, as well as for the establishment of “community based response systems” to replace the current criminal justice system. ⁵⁵

The “A Powerful Labor Movement” category stated that “the importance of a vibrant, fighting labor movement to building socialist power cannot be overstated.” It included specific demands for the “social ownership of all major industry and infrastructure,” the implementation of a 32-hour workweek, repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, abolishing at-will employment and right-to-work laws, and using government-guaranteed jobs to ensure “work for all who want it.” ⁵⁶

The “Economic Justice” category proposed “a program of transformative regulation, nationalization, social ownership, and internationalism.” It demanded the socialization and/or nationalization of vast sectors of the economy, including utilities, manufacturing, technology, telecommunications, media, insurance, real estate, and finance, while also limiting “the size and power of businesses not susceptible to nationalization or social control.” It also included proposals to forgive all medical and student loan debt, make public higher education free to students, and for “minimizing testing at all levels of education.” The DSA argued that such programs could be largely paid for “through public development and retail banks, socialized government finance, and taxing the rich and corporations.” ⁵⁷

The “Gender and Sexuality Justice” category declared that the DSA is a “socialist feminist organization” that fights against “patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy.” Specific demands include free elective abortion, free “gender affirming care” to minors without parental consent, and an end to “state recognition of the gender binary and enforcement of heteronormativity.” ⁵⁸

The “Green New Deal” category asserted that the DSA “is fighting for a social order that works for people and our planet, not profit.” It included a specific demand to “decarbonize the economy” within ten years via solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources, as well as through nationalizing and decommissioning coal, oil, and natural gas producers. The DSA also expressed its aims to “socialize the agricultural system,” guarantee “a job with union wages and benefits” alongside free “water, energy, transit, food, and other necessities” to everyone, disincentivize the use of personal automobiles and air travel, and pay various forms of environmental reparations. ⁵⁹

The “Health Justice” category demanded a government-controlled health-care system in which medical facilities are publicly owned and funded and health insurance is administered by the federal government. ⁶⁰

The “Housing for All” category called for “further decommodifying housing and land” through policies designed to force private landlords out of the real estate market alongside the use of “state action to acquire private property and transform [it] into public democratically controlled housing.” ⁶¹

The “International Solidarity, Anti-Imperialism, and Anti-Militarism” category declared that the “DSA operates in the heart of a global capitalist empire that has wrought untold suffering on billions of people and the environment,” and listed various supposed “atrocities that make up the legacy of US actions in service of capital.” Specific demands included the immediate withdrawal of the United States from NATO, the forgiveness of foreign debt and the payment of reparations to the survivors of colonization and their descendants, and an end to all sanctions against countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran. Other sections called for an end to illegal immigrant detention and the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the renunciation and abolition of nuclear weapons, the creation of “a new global monetary order” to replace global reliance on the U.S. dollar, and the “full sovereignty” of Hawaii, Puerto Rico and all other “indigenous nations whose ancestral lands are within current US borders. ⁶²

Abortion

In 2019, the DSA released a statement attacking a new law in Georgia that prohibited abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy. It called the law “draconian” and explained that socialists support access to abortion because “capitalism depends on a male and female couple producing babies, and on selfless, unpaid care in the home to nurture those babies into workers and take care of them later in life when they can no longer produce profit for a capitalist.” It noted that DSA chapters had raised over $127,000 for the National Network of Abortion Funds that year. ⁶³

International Alignment

The DSA was previously affiliated with the Socialist International, an international association of left-wing political parties and related organizations, from the DSA’s founding in 1982. In 2017, the DSA withdrew from the Socialist International due to its perception that some of the association’s member parties had been complicit in or actively supported the furtherance of capitalist economic policies in their respective countries. The implementing DSA resolution stated that “our affiliation with the Socialist International hinders our ability to develop stronger relationships with parties and social movements that share our values and which, in many cases, are bitterly opposed to their country’s [Socialist International] affiliate(s).”  ⁶⁴

At its 2021 national convention the DSA voted to apply for membership in the Sao Paulo Forum (in Portuguese, Foro de Sao Paulo), an international association of left-wing and far-left political parties from countries located in the Western Hemisphere. ⁶⁵ Prominent members of the Sao Paulo Forum include the Communist Party of Cuba, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua. ⁶⁶

In October 2023, it was announced that the DSA had officially joined the Progressive International, an international association of far-left political parties and other organizations that had originated from an open call by the Democracy in Europe Movement and the Sanders Institute in 2018 “for progressives of the world to unite.” ^{67 68}

The Progressive International’s 25-point founding declaration included statements aspiring “to eradicate capitalism everywhere,” seeking “full reparations for past crimes and the immediate restoration of land, resources, and sovereignty to all the dispossessed peoples of the world,” and encouraging revolutionary “popular movements to transform society and reclaim the state” because “winning elections is not enough.” The association paraphrased Karl Marx to explain the obligations of its members: “from each, according to ability; and to each, according to need.”  ⁶⁹

Other political parties, activist groups, and similar organizations that are members of the Progressive International include Brandworkers, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Sunrise Movement, and Code Pink of the United States; the Peace and Justice Project and Momentum in the United Kingdom; the Left Block in Russia; the Coalition for Revolution in Nigeria; and the National Alliance of People’s Movements in India. ⁷⁰ As of 2025, members or former members of the organization’s advisory council include activist, academic, and political candidate Cornel West, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja, actor John Cusack, left-wing academic Noam Chomsky, journalist Naomi Klein, former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and former Amnesty International and UNESCO executive Pierre Sané. ⁷¹

According to a January 2026 report by Newsweek, members of the DSA’s NYC chapter have allegedly attempted to connect with organizations and other entities with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Documents sent to Newsweek by an anonymous DSA member allege activities between 2021 and 2025 such as visits to regions in China, discussions with groups such as Code Pink and Friends of Socialist China, several meetings with Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, and further discussions on how to become affiliated with Shanghai website China Academy and media group Wave Media. ⁷² That same month, the Network Contagion Research Institute accused the DSA of possibly violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act due to activists taking international trips to China as well as other locations such as Cuba and Venezuela. The Institute alleged that in addition to lodgings and transportations, the trips included access to top officials for activists and services from the local governments “that may constitute in-kind benefits from foreign government-linked entities” as well as “participation in quasi-official functions.” ⁷³ The report also claimed that the group’s “pattern of conduct across multiple countries raises material questions as to whether certain political activities were undertaken with foreign support, facilitation, or expectations of continued engagement” and “meets the threshold for a good-faith FARA compliance inquiry.” ⁷³

Alliance with Teachers’ Unions

The DSA has developed close relations with teachers’ unions. In 2023, the Colorado Education Association passed an anti-capitalism resolution that had been introduced by a DSA member. At least two DSA members have been elected to board of the Los Angeles Unified School District since 2019, according to the Washington Free Beacon. ⁷⁴ Then-vice president (later president) of United Teachers Los Angeles, Cecily Myart-Cruz, was a featured speaker at the DSA’s 2019 national convention, alongside Association of Flight Attendants-CWA international president Sara Nelson. ⁷⁵

In 2018, the DSA’s National Labor Commission and the Young Democratic Socialists of America jointly published a pamphlet written by West Virginia public school teachers who were also DSA members, entitled “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers.” The authors argued that “while teachers don’t make a product that is sold on the market, we are necessary in the reproduction of a capitalist economy and the perpetuation of classes. It is teachers who train, both socially and technically, the workers of the future.” They cited the relatively high union density among teachers and the national power of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association as additional reasons for why teaching should be considered a “viable way for socialists to get into the labor movement and wage class struggle in a key industry that is under attack by capital.” ⁷⁶

In January 2022, the DSA’s Chicago chapter released a statement supporting the Chicago Teachers Union’s refusal to return to in-person teaching unless the city’s school district implemented strict COVID-19 measures. The chapter praised teachers who refused to teach their students in-person for having thrown “themselves into the fight against the capitalist class and their failure to act against this nightmarish virus.” ⁷⁷ The Young Democratic Socialists of America subsequently held its 2023 winter conference at the Chicago Teachers Union headquarters. ⁷⁸

Support for Authoritarian Regimes

The DSA has expressed favorable views toward authoritarian governments in foreign countries, and has been described as part of the “Anti-American Left.” ⁷⁹

The DSA is supportive of the communist Cuban regime and has argued that the United States functions as “the primary detriment to quality of life for Cubans, and the primary force of instability on the island.” ⁸⁰ It has declared its commitment “to solidarity with the Cuban socialist struggle, and to an independent, socialist Cuba.” ⁸¹  In 2021, amidst large popular protests against the Cuban government, the DSA’s international committee released a statement saying that “DSA stands with the Cuban people and their Revolution in this moment of unrest. End the blockade.” Observers noted that the capitalized word “Revolution” indicated that this was likely a message of support for the Cuban government rather than the protesters, who were designated “counter-revolutionaries” by the authorities. ⁸²

Through its “Venezuela Solidarity” campaign, which it was operating as of 2023, the DSA voiced its support for “self-determination and socialism in the country, free of continued US interference and sanctions.” ⁸³ In 2021, a delegation of DSA representatives traveled to Venezuela and met with its authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro. The meeting was broadcast on official state television and social media networks, and was characterized as “something of a public-relations triumph for Maduro.” DSA delegates expressed their admiration for Maduro after the meeting, with one saying that “who I met is not a dictator. I met a humble man who cares deeply about his people.” Politico noted that the poverty rate in Venezuela had jumped from 29.4 percent to 94.5 percent during Maduro’s presidency, and that the DSA delegates had stayed at a private five-star hotel where rooms cost approximately 100 times the average Venezuelan monthly salary during their trip. ⁸⁴

The DSA was also operating a “Korea Solidarity” campaign as of 2023, which blamed the United States for waging “a continuous war against the people of Korea,” for “artificially splitting the [Korean] peninsula in half,” and for “directly waging a catastrophic war and a myriad of war crimes and large scale massacres.” The DSA has called for the elimination of all sanctions against North Korea, which it has characterized as American “attacks” on the country, and for “peace, self-determination, and reconciliation without the US economically and militarily imposing its geopolitical interests in Korea’s affairs anymore.” ⁸⁵

In January 2020, the United States assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a targeted drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. ⁸⁶ SSoleimani was the commander of the Quds Force within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a United States-designated terrorist organization that the U.S. Department of Defense said had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition military service members. ⁸⁷ After the assassination, the DSA released a statement entitled “Urgent Call for Action Against a U.S. War on Iran” that accused the United States of committing “an act of war” in furtherance of its “imperialism and militarism.” ⁸⁸ In January 2026, during ongoing protests against the Iranian government, the DSA’s International Committee allegedly posted on their X (previously Twitter) profile “Love live Ayatollah Khamenei & the Islamic Republic of Iran.” ⁸⁹

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the DSA released a statement which condemned the invasion but also blamed the United States and NATO for having undertaken “imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict.” ⁹⁰ The group later released additional statements opposing Western military aid to Ukraine and economic sanctions against Russia, and argued that NATO was not a defensive alliance, but rather “a violent military structure dominated by the US and its main European partners, often at the expense of member states’ sovereignty.” ⁹¹ Prior to the invasion, the DSA had blamed “US brinkmanship” and “a sensationalist Western media blitz” for increasing tensions in the region. ⁹²

On January 3, 2026, the DSA released a statement on X (formerly Twitter) condemning the U.S Military Operation in Venezuela, which occurred the same day, that led to the capture and detainment of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The statement also contained a list of demands which included “a return of President Nicholas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores to Venezuela,” “an immediate end to the war and an end to all US military violence against Venezuela,” “a total withdrawal of all US…military assets from the Caribbean…,” “an end to the illegal unilateral sanctions against Venezuela, and the end to the use of unilateral sanctions anywhere in the world,” and “an end to the failed “war on drugs” framework…” ⁹³

On January 10, 2026, a coalition of nonprofits and advocacy groups organized a protest in Washington D.C to demonstrate against Maduro’s and Flores’ detainment. According to flyers distributed for the event, demands made by the coalition included freeing “President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” “Pass the War Powers Act,” “Impeach Trump For War Crimes,” “No War For Oil,” and “End All Sanctions Against Venezuela.” ^{94 95} Members of the coalition which organized the demonstration included the Metro DC DSA chapter, the Party for Socialism & Liberation (PSL), the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Diaspora Pa’Lante Collective, Cutlass DMV, Code Pink, and Anakbayan. ⁹⁴

Anti-ICE Protests

In January 2026, a coalition of organizations and nonprofits organized a protest in New York City titled “No Wars, No Kings, No ICE,” to demonstrate against the Second Trump Administration, U.S Military Action in Venezuela, and operations conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These included the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) NYC, Rise and Resist, The People’s Forum, Federal Unionists Network, Jewish Voice for Peace NYC, Target Majority, Common Defense, Indivisible Brooklyn, Our Time, 50501, and the Brooklyn Resisters. Other groups that took part in similar protests in the city around January 2026 include the national DSA organization, the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth from the City University of New York, the International Communist League, Indivisible, and Refuse Fascism. ^{96 97}

In January 2026, an “ICE Out of MN: Day of Truth and Freedom” event was planned for January 23 to push for “no work, no school, no shopping” in Minneapolis, Minnesota to protest against the activities of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the city. Groups involved with promoting or organizing the event included local chapters of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the People’s Forum, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Revolutionary Communists of America, the Communist Party USA Twin Cities branch, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). A local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was listed among the host groups on a Facebook page advertising the strike, while the national United Auto Workers (UAW) released a post online endorsing the strike. ⁹⁸

Affordable Housing

The DSA has an affordable housing division called “the DSA Housing Justice Commission.” The Commission’s slogan as of 2025 was “the housing market is not necessary.” As of July 2025, the Commission was calling on supporters to help it pass its resolution on affordable housing at the DSA’s national convention. The resolution argued for increasing the authority of tenant unions across the United States and using DSA resources to help them regulate the activities of landowners. It also aimed to have DSA members help them organize apartment buildings, neighborhoods, and various residents into unions. ⁹⁹

The DSA Housing Justice Commission’s “Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee” is a project designed to train DSA members to engage in tenant organizing activities throughout the United States. It advocates that the DSA  create multiple local tenant associations to produce “tenant militancy and capacity” and defeat landlords, real estate developers, and “real estate capitalists” in local and state legislatures. In 2023, the Commission released a statement titled “The 4 Principles of Social Housing” that advocates the implementation of a social housing scheme in America that would make all property “free from capitalism and financialization.” ⁹⁹

In 2020, the left-of-center Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless provided support to and partnered with the Cleveland DSA and the Legal Aid Society for a housing campaign that aimed to “organize tenants” and inform them “of their rights,” both “during the pandemic and beyond.” ¹⁰⁰

Transgenderism

The DSA has a division called Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy (TRBA) which claims it is the “largest hub for grassroots trans rights organizing in America.” The TRBA offers a “Trans Sanctuary City Toolkit” to help activists push for pro-transgender legislation in local governments. This includes banning “discrimination” against trans identity, banning psychiatric practices which aim to address theorized root causes of gender dysphoria, and enacting protections for transgender youth through school boards. The toolkit also offers advice on activist organizing, outlining how DSA members can mobilize to influence legislature meetings and host demonstrations. ^{101 102}

Environmentalism

The DSA organizes with environmentalist groups, labor unions, and its own local chapters to push for the policy prescriptions laid out in the Green New Deal and to build various non-traditional energy projects and conservation initiatives. The DSA’s environmental division, called “EcoSocialists,” focuses on four areas: creating “publicly owned” non-traditional energy sources; retrofitting and socializing housing with non-traditional energy modifications by partnering with construction trade unions; making public transportation fully funded by the government and enshrining it as a “right”; and creating “green” community spaces and institutions like schools. The DSA’s EcoSocialists claims that even capitalists who support combatting human-caused climate change will inevitably “exploit and immiserate the working class” and that therefore the climate movement must become fully socialist. ^{103 104}

Religion

As of 2025, the DSA website linked to a project called “Religious Socialism,” a coalition of DSA members aimed to recruit supporters from faith-based social justice activist groups. Religious Socialism is named after a publication created by John Cort in 1977, who was a Christian socialist activist and the then-co-chair of the Religion and Socialism Commission of the DSA. As of 2025, the DSA considered its Religious Socialism division to be a “work in progress” and encouraged supporters to volunteer to help it form partnerships with the wider interfaith religious left. ^{3 105}

Anti-Israel Activism

The Democratic Socialists of America is deeply hostile toward Israel, to the point where the group has been accused of antisemitism. ^{8 9}

Historical Positions

DSA founder Michael Harrington was a supporter of Israel, having written in 1975 that “the basic fact is that Zionism—which I take to mean the philosophy of support for and identification with a Jewish homeland in Israel—is the national liberation movement of a Jewish people asserting their right to self-determination.” He organized support for Israel among American socialists during both the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee—one of the DSA’s two direct predecessor organizations—also supported Israel in its platform. ¹⁰⁶

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions

The DSA’s rapid growth during the mid-2010s coincided with the similarly rapid growth of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement among young left-wing activists, meaning that many of the DSA’s new members believed that support for the BDS movement was “a badge of progressive authenticity.” Anti-Israel activism soon became a core component of the DSA’s ideology. ¹⁰⁶

In 2017, the DSA voted to formally support the BDS movement, and two years later it established an official BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group. The working group’s purpose was to organize DSA members to support the BDS movement, and to educate them “about the Palestinian struggle for liberation, Zionism’s settler-colonialist and imperialist roots, Israeli apartheid, and Palestine’s interconnections with a myriad of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles in America and elsewhere.” It demanded “a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.” ¹⁰⁷

According to the American Jewish Committee, the phrase “from the river to the sea” is widely understood as a rejection of Israel’s right to exist by implying “that the entire land of Israel should be freed from Jews,” and is considered antisemitic. ¹⁰⁸

Statements released by the BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group on the DSA’s behalf have accused Israel of engaging in “premeditated ethnic cleansing” ever since the country’s establishment in 1948. ¹⁰⁹ The working group has declared that “Zionism is Racism and Israel is an Apartheid State,” and alleged that Israel is pursuing “Jewish supremacy” through the “dispossession and elimination” of the “indigenous” Palestinians. It has said that “fascist mobs are the true face of Zionism and the representatives of the Israeli State’s objectives.” ¹¹⁰

Controversial Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour is a DSA member, and was a featured speaker at the group’s 2019 national convention. ¹¹¹

Iron Dome

In late 2021, then-U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who was then a member of the DSA, was nearly expelled from the organization over having voted to fund Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, having traveled to the country alongside the left-of-center advocacy group J Street, and having met with Israel’s then-prime minister, Naftali Bennett. Though the DSA’s national political committee ultimately decided not to expel him, it said there was “no excuse” for Rep. Bowman’s actions in helping “to legitimize an apartheid state.” ¹¹²

Many DSA members were upset with the decision not to expel Rep. Bowman, and after persistent agitation the national committee voted to dissolve the BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group in March 2022, though that decision was soon reversed. ¹¹³ The working group was later absorbed into the DSA’s international committee at the group’s 2023 national convention, though the implementing resolution was amended to include language labeling Israel “a racist apartheid state” and committing the DSA to “Palestinian liberation and political and social equality between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.” ¹¹⁴

Response to the 2023 Hamas Terrorist Attacks

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian militants primarily affiliated with the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip and began indiscriminately killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians and military personnel. More than 1,400 Israelis, including many women and children, were reportedly killed in the initial attack and in subsequent fighting, which was unprecedented in its scope and characterized by widespread atrocities. Israel responded by declaring war on Hamas. ¹¹⁵

That same day, while Hamas militants were still operating within Israel, the DSA released a statement saying that it was “steadfast in expressing our solidarity with Palestine” and that the terrorist attacks were “a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.” ¹¹⁶ Another statement released by the DSA’s international committee read “long live the resistance!” and urged all DSA members to attend Palestinian solidarity demonstrations. ¹¹⁷

The DSA’s New York City chapter promoted an “All Out for Palestine” rally that was to be held in Times Square on October 8, with an accompanying statement explaining that it was “in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist 75 years of occupation and apartheid.” ¹¹⁸ At the rally, protesters reportedly burned an Israeli flag and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans, and at least one protester held up a picture of a swastika. ¹¹⁹

The DSA was heavily criticized for its response to the terrorist attacks. U.S. Representative Shri Thanedar (D-MI) renounced his membership, saying that he could “no longer associate with an organization unwilling to call out terrorism in all its forms.” ¹²⁰ U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) wrote that the DSA’s New York City chapter had revealed “itself for what it truly is: an antisemitic stain on the soul of America’s largest city.” ⁸ He later elaborated that “the DSA, despite the name, is not democratic. It’s despicable, detestable, disgraceful, and disgraced. The same can be said of anyone who enables them.” ¹²¹ The New York State Democratic Party released a statement “strongly condemn[ing]” the DSA’s New York City chapter for having supported “a rally that sought to justify the wholly unjustifiable acts of wanton violence, terrorism, kidnapping and murder that was perpetrated on the people of Israel this weekend.” ¹²²

Several prominent DSA members resigned from the organization in the aftermath of the attacks. Comedian Sarah Silverman wrote that “the DSA of which I was a proud lifetime member, has lost me forever.” Maurice Isserman, a founding member of the organization who had also briefly been a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s, resigned over what he called “the DSA leadership’s politically and morally bankrupt response to the horrific Hamas October 7 anti-Jewish pogrom,” writing that it had “forfeited the right to call itself democratic socialist.” ³⁷ Harold Meyerson, another longtime DSA member, wrote in the American Prospect that he and many of his “geezer comrades” had come to the conclusion that resigning from the DSA was the option that best comported with their “strategic and moral beliefs.” ¹²³

One week after the Hamas terrorist attacks, the DSA announced a “No Money for Massacres” campaign, which claimed that Israel was using “the language of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and accused the Biden administration of “actively supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” The campaign demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to United States military aid to Israel. ¹²⁴ Official messaging guidance from the DSA called Israel’s military response against Hamas “a historic atrocity,” and accused the Israeli government of exploiting the terrorist attacks as “a reason to annihilate Gaza.” ¹²⁵

The DSA also released a Palestine Solidarity National Toolkit, in which it promised to coordinate efforts among its members to “present a united front for Palestine.” It strongly discouraged local chapters from publishing “original statements” about the war so that the group could “maintain a united nationwide message.” The DSA also identified several other activist groups that it considered to be aligned with its own views on the conflict, including the BDS Movement, If Not Now, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Students for Justice in Palestine. It listed the Adalah Justice Project and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights as other “trusted organizations.” ¹²⁶

After the U.S. House of Representatives voted to formally censure DSA member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in November 2023 over her comments about Israel, the DSA called it “a shameful bipartisan attack” and praised Rep. Tlaib for “exposing the truth about Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians.” ¹²⁷

In August 2025, during the DSA’s annual National Convention, members voted 56 percent to 43 percent to approve “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA,” a party resolution that calls for the DSA’s commitment to the “Thawabit,” a Palestinian nationalist framework which supports the Palestinian “right of return,” declares Jerusalem to be the Palestinian capital, supports all “resistance” to the state of Israel, and has been described by Palestinian leaders as a framework  “aimed at eliminating Israel and establishing a Palestinian state in its place.” ¹²⁸ In addition, the approved resolution would make actions considered pro-Israeli, such as making statements like “Israel has a right to defend itself” or equating “anti-Zionism with antisemitism,” to be considered an “expellable offense” and subject to a vote by the DSA National Political Committee. ¹²⁸

On August 29, 2025, the Democratic Socialists of America joined United States Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Palestinian Boycott, Divest, Sanctions National Committee in coordinating West Coast protests under the banner “Stop Fueling Genocide.” The demonstrations targeted Chevron gas stations and included highway bannering in California, Oregon, and Washington. ¹²⁹

Support for Houthis

In January 2024, the United States and the United Kingdom began conducting strikes against the Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group that opposes the internationally recognized Yemeni government. Following the outbreak of the 2023 war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis began launching attacks on commercial shipping passing through the Red Sea. Though the group claimed to be targeting ships which had connections to Israel, many of the ships that were attacked had no links to the country. The Houthis also launched missile and drone attacks against Israel directly.¹³⁰

According to a statement from the Biden White House on January 11, “crews from more than 20 countries have been threatened or taken hostage in acts of piracy” perpetrated by the Houthis, and more than 2,000 ships had been forced to change course in order to avoid the Red Sea.¹³¹ The official slogan of the Houthis is “Death to America, Death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam.”¹³²

On January 13, the DSA released a statement condemning the retaliatory strikes against the Houthis. Referring to the rebel militant group as “Yemeni forces” and to the missile and drone sites targeted as “civilian infrastructure,” the DSA falsely claimed that the Houthis had only “blocked” ships associated with Israel as part their “humanitarian blockade of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” It asserted that “socialist internationalism obligates us to act in solidarity with the Palestinian and Yemeni people who have bravely resisted imperial aggression by the US and its partners for decades.”¹³³

Associated Elected Officials

Though it is not a political party, the DSA supports ballot measures and candidates for local, state, and federal offices. It considers its electoral work to be “a vital part of our larger struggle for political and economic democracy.” ¹³⁴

Some candidates and ballot measures receive an official endorsement from the national DSA, which is approved by the group’s national political committee after having been vetted for proper alignment “with DSA’s political platform and theory of power.” Official endorsement “signals [the DSA’s] highest level of commitment to a specific campaign.” ¹³⁵ Endorsements may also be made separately at the local chapter level. ¹³⁶

In materials released in conjunction with its August 2023 national convention, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) claimed that there were 207 DSA members, of whom 52 had been endorsed by the national DSA, who held elected office in the United States. ¹² In 2021, the national DSA endorsed 41 candidates and ballot measures, 27 of which won. In 2022, the national DSA endorsed 49 candidates and ballot measures, 28 of which won. As of July 2023, the national DSA had endorsed 36 candidates and ballot measures, 19 of which had won at that time. ¹³⁷

The national DSA endorsed 10 candidates in the 2023 Chicago aldermanic election, 6 of whom were elected. ¹³⁷ As of November 2023 at least five members of the Chicago City Council were members of the DSA, and were organized into a democratic socialist caucus. ¹³⁸ Other cities in which DSA-endorsed candidates won election to city councils or similar municipal bodies in 2021 or 2022 include Hamden, Connecticut; St. Petersburg, Florida; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Boston, Massachusetts; Somerville, Massachusetts; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Ithaca, New York; New York City; Rochester, New York; Los Angeles, California; and St. Louis, Missouri. ¹³⁷

At least twelve members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been publicly identified as DSA members, either before or during their time serving in elected office. All were elected on the Democratic Party ticket. Those either out of office or no longer identified with the DSA include:

• Ron Dellums (D-CA), in office 1971-1998. ¹³⁹
• Major Owens (D-NY), in office 1983-2007. ¹³⁹
• Danny Davis (D-IL), in office 1997-present. ¹⁴⁰
• David Bonior (D-MI), in office 1977-2003. ¹⁴¹
• John Conyers (D-MI), in office 1965-2017. ¹⁴²
• Summer Lee (D-PA), in office 2023-present. ¹⁴³
• Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), in office 2021-2025. ¹³⁹
• Cori Bush (D-MO) in office 2021-2025 ¹³⁹
• Shri Thanedar (D-MI), in office 2023-present. ¹⁴⁴

As of July 2025, three incumbent U.S. Representatives are reportedly members of the DSA:

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), in office since 2019. ¹³⁹
• Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), in office since 2019. ¹³⁹
• Greg Casar (D-TX), in office since 2023. ¹⁴⁵

In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated then-Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) in the Democratic primary election for New York’s 14th congressional district. ⁴² Shortly thereafter, Rashida Tlaib won the Democratic primary election for Michigan’s 13th congressional district. Both were subsequently elected as the only two DSA members to serve in the 116th Congress. In 2020, two additional DSA members, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, were elected to serve alongside Reps. Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib in the 117th Congress. ¹³⁹ Reps. Greg Casar and Shri Thanedar were elected in 2022 to serve in the 118th Congress, ¹⁴⁶ alongside Rep. Summer Lee, who had reportedly resigned her membership in the DSA prior to being elected. ¹⁴⁷

According to the New York Times, Rep. Bowman allowed his DSA membership to lapse in 2022. ¹⁴⁸ Rep. Thanedar publicly renounced his membership after the DSA’s response to the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel. ¹⁴⁹ As of November 2023, Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Casar, and Tlaib appeared to be current members of the DSA. ¹¹

Despite self-identifying as a democratic socialist, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is not a DSA member. ³⁸

In May 2024, the DSA published a blog post by member Curtis Robinson in which he criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s voting record on Israel and her “unwavering loyalty to the Democratic Party.” In June 2024, the DSA said it would only endorse Rep. Ocasio-Cortez if she stated her opposition to “all funding of Israel,” voiced support for BDS, and met several other agenda items. By July 2024, the national DSA withdrew its endorsement of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez due to her failure to meet its demands, although the New York City DSA chapter kept its endorsement in place. ^{13 14 15}

New York Mayoral Campaign of Zohran Mamdani

According to the DSA, Zohran Mamdani is a member of the NYC-DSA. The NYC-DSA endorsed Mamdani, arguing that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and Mayor Eric Adams (D) had pushed New York “to the right” and that Mamdani would “bring New Yorkers back to the left.” It praised his policy platform, particularly his plans to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize groceries, bus fares, childcare, and utility bills, and to freeze rents. ¹⁷

In June 2025, the DSA celebrated candidate Zohran Mamdani for his victory in the Democratic primary election for mayor of New York City. The organization declared that “socialism has won” in New York City and that the “working class” of New York have “refused to accept th[e] lie” that the city cannot use its tax funds to support “affordable housing, efficient transit, and universal child care.” It interpreted the outcome of the election as a referendum on the future of the Democratic Party and said it showed the need for the kind of “political party DSA is building.” ¹⁸

The DSA furthermore took credit for Mamdani’s victory, saying he was always just a “representative” of the socialist movement and that this movement, “spearheaded by NYC-DSA,” was responsible for the canvassing efforts and voter mobilization initiatives that won the election. It added that the socialist movement should be seen as bigger than any one election or city and encouraged supporters to help the DSA and its local chapters inspire more leaders like Mamdani to win elections all over the United States. ¹⁸

As of 2025, the first image on the landing page for the DSA website featured a photo of Mamdani alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and a host of DSA activists. ¹⁵⁰

According to a September 2025 report by The Nation, the DSA’s New York chapter took credit for organizing the Mamdani campaign’s organizing and volunteering efforts while specifically targeting “left-wing activists, tenants in the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, and Muslims.” ¹⁵¹

Structure and Leadership

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is organized as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” advocacy nonprofit. It also has an affiliated 501(c)(3) charitable arm called the Democratic Socialists of America Fund (DSA Fund). ¹⁵² In 2023, the DSA reported having approximately 78,000 members, down from a high of 95,000 in 2021 but significantly more than the 6,200 it reported having in 2015. ²

As of November 2023, the DSA’s website listed 209 local chapters and organizing committees, ¹⁵³ while a report released in conjunction with its national convention in August of that year claimed that there were 244 chapters and organizing committees, 197 of which were active. According to that report, approximately 50 percent of DSA chapters had between 1 and 100 members, 38 percent had between 101 and 500 members, and 12 percent had over 500 members. ¹⁵⁴ The New York City chapter has been described as the “DSA’s center of gravity,” and reportedly accounts for roughly 10 percent of the national organization’s entire membership. ¹⁵⁵

The DSA has a youth and student section called Young Democratic Socialists of America, which is active in high schools, colleges, and universities. ¹⁵⁶ A report prepared for the DSA’s 2023 national convention claimed that there were 126 Young Democratic Socialists of America chapters nationwide. ²

The DSA is governed by a 25-member National Political Committee, which is elected every two years at the group’s national convention. The DSA’s constitution stipulates that at least five members of the National Political Committee must be “people of color,” while no more than eight members may be men. ¹⁵⁷ Candidates for National Political Committee elections typically run as members of one of the DSA’s internal ideological caucuses, and the political makeup of the committee is generally evaluated based upon the number of committee members who are affiliated with each caucus. ¹⁵⁸

As of 2026, Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer were the national co-chairs of the DSA’s national political committee, roles they held since 2023. They were also members of the steering committee. At that time, Siddique was employed as a research analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies’ (IPS) national priorities project, where he researched the size of the U.S. military budget and argued that it negatively impacted the ability for the country to “address long-term societal threats like accelerating inequality and climate change.” Saddique was a founding member of the Climate Mobilization and worked as the leader of research and digital communications before joining IPS. Romer was working as the editor-in-chief and publisher of Arioso Press, managing the publications of her late parents-in-laws who were classical musicians. She previously worked for left-of-center consulting firms Progressives Consulting LLC (now merged with Weinberg Partners) and Silver and Blue, helping PACs, political parties, and candidates on messaging and fundraising. ^{159 160 161}

The DSA also maintains a full-time staff, which as of August 2023 consisted of 32 people. ¹⁶² Maria Svart is the national director of the DSA. In 2021, she was paid $94,137 in reportable compensation plus an additional $26,431 in other compensation. ¹⁶³

In 2023, Svart’s salary increased to $102,715 plus an additional $30,948 in other compensation. ¹⁶⁴

Cornel West was formerly an honorary DSA chair. ¹⁶⁵

Chapters

The DSA has local and regional chapters across the United States and actively encourages supporters to open new chapters. Each chapter is allowed to send a certain number of delegates based on the chapter’s size to the DSA’s national convention. The DSA also permits “at-large” delegates to represent areas which lack DSA chapters. To open a DSA chapter, the DSA requires one to be a member up-to-date in paying their dues and to live in an area that is not covered by another DSA subgroup. One must then submit a “chapter interest form,” answer a series of questions, attend an interest call, and then wait for approval from DSA staff. One this is done, the member receives more information on becoming an “Organizing Committee” and on training members in socialist activism. ^{166 167}

Internal Caucuses

The DSA’s national political committee is de facto divided amongst members of any of several internal “caucuses,” or factional groups within the DSA. The caucuses each endorse a differing form of socialism, Marxism, Communism, or other left-wing ideology. ¹⁵⁸

Groundwork is a caucus that is committed to “the fight for socialism [in] the long haul,” and seeks to grow and develop the DSA’s membership and chapter network while picking “winning fights with the boss.” It sees labor and electoral work as “the twin engines of our power as workers.” ¹⁶⁸ Groundwork is considered a part of the DSA’s moderate wing. ¹⁵⁸

Socialist Majority is a caucus that argues the DSA should focus on organizing around immediate and specific demands, in conjunction with other left-wing movements. ¹⁶⁹ It is focused on winning elections and enacting favorable legislation, and until 2023 was considered the most powerful DSA caucus at the national level. It is considered a part of the DSA’s moderate wing. ^{158 170}

Bread & Roses is “a national caucus of Marxist organizers” within the DSA. It seeks to establish “a real democratic socialist alternative to the Republican and Democratic Parties” that is built around a “militant” labor movement. ¹⁷¹ It is considered either a part of the DSA’s radical-left wing or a “swing” caucus, ¹⁷² and has been criticized by some of the DSA’s more revolutionary Marxist caucuses for being too willing to accommodate reform-oriented socialists. ¹⁵⁸

Red Star is a revolutionary Marxist caucus within the DSA. It believes that capitalism cannot be reformed into socialism, and that “a complete upheaval of the present economic system” is necessary to produce a new socialist workers’ state with a centrally planned economy. ¹⁷³ It is considered a part of the DSA’s left wing. ¹⁵⁸

Marxist Unity Group is a revolutionary communist caucus within the DSA. Its objective is “nothing less than a working-class, socialist revolution” in which the “legitimacy of the U.S. Constitution” is eroded “through combative political agitation.” It argues that the working class has the right “to take power by any means necessary,” and after doing so must establish a “revolutionary Popular Assembly” in which only political parties “that accept the laws of the new revolutionary order will be free to operate.” Eventually, the Marxist Unity Group envisions global communism as heralding “the true beginning of human history.” ¹⁷⁴ It is considered a part of the DSA’s left wing. ¹⁵⁸

Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus (AFROSOC) is an activist caucus for non-white members of the DSA. It believes that creating a “multiracial working-class base” is the only viable path for creating a “socialist future.” AFROSOC promotes socialist-aligned educational materials and programs for both “public and internal” as well as “agitation,” viewing its work as continuing the “Black radical tradition.” AFROSOC advocates for non-white DSA members to become leaders in its regional chapters and in the national organization at large. In July 2020, AFROSOC joined the Sunrise Movement in co-organizing a four-day “crash course” to train activists in “how to turn the mandate to ‘Defund the Police’ into tangible action.” Other organizers included Mijente, Southerners on New Ground (SONG), and Dream Defenders. According to Sunrise, the course’s goals included “Understand[ing] what exactly the demand “Defund the Police” means,” “Envision[ing] what a world without police could look like, and “Get[ting] ready to take action to defund police in your community.” ^{175 176 177}

At the DSA’s 2023 national convention, delegates elected a new 16-member national political committee. Four members were elected from the Groundwork slate, three members from the Bread & Roses caucus, three members from the Red Star caucus, two members from the Socialist Majority Caucus, two members from the Marxist Unity Group, one member from an anti-Zionist slate, and one unaffiliated member. ¹⁷²

DSA national secretary Amy Wilhelm, a member of the Marxist Unity Group, wrote that the 2023 national political committee elections “represented a major shift in the balance of power within the [national political committee],” in that the incoming members would constitute a clear radical-left majority. ¹⁷⁸ At least five of the 16 members of the committee were elected from caucuses that are explicitly revolutionary Marxist and/or communist. ⁷

Resignation of National Director Maria Svart

In January 2024, DSA national director Maria Svart announced that she had tendered her resignation to the National Political Committee. Svart had worked as the DSA’s national director since 2011, and wrote that she had made the decision to resign in late 2023 but had postponed announcing it due to the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel and a fear that doing so could “disrupt our critical Palestine solidarity work.”¹⁷⁹

In her farewell note, Svart identified what she argued were both strengths and weaknesses of the DSA. She noted that while “claims of DSA’s demise are premature” and that there were “trends to make me cautiously optimistic,” the organization itself was “not in a major upswing” and more members were resigning or lapsing than were joining. She explained that the DSA was currently “in a period of membership shrinkage and increasing financial stress.”¹⁷⁹

Svart faulted delegates at the DSA’s 2023 national convention for being unable to “fully realize the realities of the budget or debate the real tradeoffs inherent in the resolutions considered.” She wrote that “on our present course, we will be unable to pay all our bills in a few months without a change in direction. Funding all 2023 convention decisions would add more than $2 million to the budget which we simply don’t have. As a nonprofit organization, we cannot print money like the government or take loans like a large corporation.” Svart noted that as the DSA’s National Political Committee was finalizing its 2024 budget, it would “require very hard choices, and longer term, a reckoning with our structure and our definition of democracy.”¹⁷⁹

Financials

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is primarily funded through membership dues. ⁶

On its 2023 tax return, the DSA reported total revenue of $6,161,514, total expenses of $7,095,483, and net assets of $3,697,500. ¹⁸⁰

On its 2021 tax return, the DSA reported total revenue of $6,854,135, total expenses of $5,632,072, and net assets of $4,732,097. Of its revenue, $6,083,487 came from membership dues. ¹⁸¹

On its 2019 tax return, the DSA reported total revenue of $3,018,438, total expenses of $3,568,241, and net assets of $1,694,062. Of its revenue, $2,302,488 came from membership dues. ¹⁸²

On its 2016 tax return, the DSA reported total revenue of $861,265, total expenses of $479,962, and net assets of $557,596. Of its revenue, $376,946 came from membership dues. It reported spending $77,839 on “political work (Sanders support).” ¹⁸³

On its 2014 tax return, the DSA reported total revenue of $299,947, total expenses of $305,918, and net assets of $100,696. ¹⁸⁴

Funding

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is primarily funded through membership dues. Supporters are notified that donations to the DSA, as 501(c)(4), are not tax deductible, and that those wishing to make tax deductible donations should donate to Democratic Socialists of America Fund (DSA Fund), its “educational” 501(c)(3) sister organization. In 2023, the DSA Fund received $410,830 in contributions and grants and ended the year with $661,631 in net assets. At that time, it was managed by Maria Svart, its executive director. It granted the national DSA group $25,000 for “youth and student education.” ^{185 186 187 188}

Despite being sustained by membership dues and relatively small-dollar donations, DSA does receive grants from other organizations. ¹⁸⁹

In 2018, the DSA received an unrestricted grant worth $8,797 from Network for Good. ¹⁹⁰

In 2019, the DSA received $10,000 from Tenants and Owners Development Corporation to “promote public education” and $1,500 from Craigslist Charitable Fund. ^{191 192}

In 2020, the DSA received $1,000 from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) labor union. ¹⁹³

From 2016 to 2020, the DSA received at least $149,429 from the Jewish Communal Fund for “general support.” ^{194 195 196 197}

In 2022, the DSA Fund received $3,000 from the M. Jay Kramer Foundation for “general support,” $10,000 from the Benjamin Fund (now Arc of Justice) for “general support,” $7,361 from the Blackbaud Giving Fund, and $10,000 from the One World Fund for “general support.” ^{198 199 200 201}

In 2023, the DSA Fund received $3,087 from the M. Jay Kramer Foundation for “general support.” ²⁰²

In 2024, the DSA Fund received $3,000 from the M. Jay Kramer Foundation for “general support.” ²⁰³

In July 2026, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the retirement account of late NYU professor David Greenberg, worth roughly $5.2 million, could be transferred to the DSA as opposed to the family estate. Greenburg previously died in 2024 and his primary beneficiaries, his parents, were also deceased at the time, with Greenberg also naming the “New American Movement or “any successor thereof” as his contingent beneficiary. Judge Engelmayer argued that since the DSA was created through the merger of the New America Movement and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee in 1982, there was left “no doubt” that the DSA would qualify as the successor and therefore could receive the retirement account. ²⁰⁴