▶ Key Takeaways
- Most political commentators are getting DSA’s success wrong. The story is not merely socialist messaging. It is organization, recruitment, personal voter contact and turnout.
- Socialism is not advancing because most Americans understand and embrace it. A disciplined political minority is learning how to defeat an unorganized majority.
- Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped prove that candidates could openly identify with democratic socialism and still win within the Democratic Party.
- Zohran Mamdani transformed that momentum into a massive political machine. His 2025 campaign eventually reported more than 100,000 volunteers and three million doors knocked.
- DSA-backed candidates now use “affordability” to make socialism sound compassionate: free childcare, free transportation, rent freezes and government-run services—without fully explaining the cost.
- Insurgent candidates are defeating established Democrats through direct voter contact. Socialist Avila Chevalier’s successful campaign reported knocking more than 75,000 doors in approximately four months.
- Social media generates attention. A field organization converts that attention into votes. Spencer Pratt’s 2026 Los Angeles campaign demonstrated the difference.
- For many activists, politics has become a substitute religion. The state becomes the source of provision, justice, identity and moral authority. Politics is their religion. The state or government is their God.
- DSA’s greatest advantage is not that its ideas work. Its advantage is that it organizes believers, while many Americans who oppose socialism remain passive.
{Editor’s note:
The media focuses on socialist candidates, radical promises and viral videos. But that is not why DSA is winning election after election—and what most commentators are missing will dramatically change America for the worst.}
Most commentators are getting the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America dangerously wrong.
And if conservatives, Christians, Republicans and libertarians continue to misunderstand why DSA is winning election after election, they will continue to lose elections they should win.
Turn on the television.
Watch or listen to political podcasts.
Scroll through social media.
You will hear endless commentary about Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and DSA’s radical promises.
But you will hear very little about the machine making their victories possible.
That is the real story.
And in a moment, I am going to expose 9 surprising tactics DSA is using to recruit candidates, mobilize volunteers, defeat establishment Democrats—and transform America.
These tactics explain something most talking heads have missed:
Socialism is not advancing because most Americans have carefully studied it and decided they want it.
It is advancing because a disciplined, highly motivated political minority has learned how to defeat an unorganized majority.
That distinction changes everything.
The Socialist Victory Nobody Saw Coming
The warning signs were there.
Bernie Sanders made socialism respectable to millions of young Americans.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proved an unknown socialist challenger could defeat one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress.
Then Zohran Mamdani showed how social media, emotional promises and massive grassroots mobilization could be combined into a devastating political weapon.
But Mamdani was not the conclusion of this movement.
He was the prototype.
His victory helped produce new volunteers, new donors, new organizers and new candidates.
In June 2026, Mamdani-backed candidates won three major New York congressional primaries as well as local offices.
One of them, Darializa Avila Chevalier, defeated five-term Congressman Adriano Espaillat—the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Her campaign had reportedly knocked more than 75,000 doors in approximately four months.
Think about that.
A political newcomer with far less money built a door-to-door operation large enough to help defeat a powerful incumbent who had served in Congress for nearly a decade.
It was not an isolated upset.
In Colorado, 29-year-old democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated Congresswoman Diana DeGette, a 15-term incumbent first elected in 1996.
Kiros’ campaign reported more than 1,000 individual canvassers knocking approximately 116,000 doors. That is just incredible for a congressional candidate.
In Washington, D.C., Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic mayoral primary.
In Seattle, left-wing organizer Katie Wilson defeated incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell after mobilizing more than 2,000 volunteers and knocking approximately 50,000 doors.
Different cities.
Different candidates.
The same organizing lesson.
These candidates are not winning simply because their promises sound attractive.
They are winning because they have built an organization capable of turning ideological passion into votes.
Here are the nine tactics behind the new socialist machine:
1. Target elections where a disciplined minority can control the outcome.
Most Americans think politics is about presidential elections. DSA understands that many of America’s most consequential elections are decided in low-turnout primaries, municipal races, school board races, and safe Democratic districts.
That changes the mathematics.
DSA does not need to persuade most Americans to support socialism.
It needs to mobilize enough supporters to control a Democratic primary in a district where the Democratic nominee is almost guaranteed to win the general election.
A famous incumbent may have more money.
The incumbent may have more endorsements.
The incumbent may have nearly universal name recognition and lawn signs.
None of that matters if the incumbent’s supporters stay home while the socialist challenger’s supporters’ vote.
That is why special elections and primaries are turnout warfare.
The larger but passive side often loses.
The smaller but disciplined side wins.
During the 2026 election season, DSA’s own publication counted nearly 90 endorsed candidates, including more than a dozen congressional candidates.
They will not all win.
They do not have to.
A handful of victories can change a city council or school board, defeat a congressional leader, or pull an entire political party further toward socialism.
2. Take over the Democratic Party without creating a socialist party.
DSA has avoided one of the greatest obstacles facing political movements.
It does not need to build a major third party.
Most DSA candidates simply run as Democrats.
That gives them access to the Democratic ballot line, Democratic voters and the party infrastructure built by the very incumbents they are trying to defeat.
This is not simply participation in the Democratic Party.
It is transformation from within.
Bernie Sanders helped pioneer the modern strategy.
He ran for president in the Democratic primaries while continuing to identify as a democratic socialist.
His campaigns introduced millions of Americans—especially young Americans—to socialist language, class-conflict rhetoric, and government-centered solutions.
AOC then demonstrated what was possible at the congressional level.
In 2018, the little-known challenger defeated Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent and one of the most powerful House Democrats.
Crowley dramatically outspent her.
It did not save him.
AOC had the energy, ideological passion, personal voter contact and volunteer intensity Crowley lacked.
Mamdani took those lessons and expanded them.
Now DSA-backed candidates are attempting to repeat that model nationwide… including red states.
The establishment sees an insurgency.
DSA sees an opportunity.
3. Recruit organizers—not conventional politicians.
Traditional political parties look for familiar qualifications.
Who can raise money?
Who knows important people?
Who has held office before?
Who looks good on television?
DSA frequently asks a different question:
Who can organize people?
Its candidates often emerge from tenant organizations, labor unions, anti-Israel demonstrations, activist networks and ideological movements.
Avila Chevalier was an organizer before she became a congressional candidate.
Katie Wilson spent years organizing around public transportation and working-class issues before running for mayor of Seattle
Mamdani had experience organizing tenants threatened with eviction before his rise to City Hall.
This gives them a different understanding of a political campaign.
A conventional politician asks:
“How can I win this election?”
A movement organizer asks:
“How can this campaign win the election, recruit activists, expand the organization and build power for the next fight?”
That difference is enormous.
For DSA, an election is not simply a competition for one office.
It is a recruitment tool.
It is a training program.
It is a fundraising opportunity.
It is a way to build a database and identify future leaders.
Even a losing campaign can strengthen the movement if it produces more trained activists than it had before.
4. Build a permanent political machine—not a temporary campaign.
Many Republican and conservative campaigns start too late and close too quickly:
- A candidate announces.
- Consultants are hired.
- Money is raised.
- Advertisements run.
- Election Day arrives.
Then the organization disappears.
DSA is building something far more dangerous—and far more effective.
Its local chapters organize between elections.
They train leaders.
They conduct ideological education.
They build alliances with unions, tenant organizations, campus groups and activist networks.
They recruit volunteers long before a candidate appears on the ballot.
That creates permanent political infrastructure.
Experienced volunteers can be moved from one race to another.
Successful scripts and tactics can be repeated.
New volunteers can be trained by people who worked on earlier campaigns.
Voter relationships can be maintained long after Election Day.
A New York DSA leader revealed the scale of the ambition.
“If we only elect Zohran, we only elect AOC, our project will have been a failure,” NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo told supporters.
“Our ambitions are so much higher than just a position in government. We want to transform the world.”
Then he described what DSA must become:
A “factory.”
That one word should shock every American who still believes socialism is a marginal political movement.
A factory does not produce one candidate.
It produces candidates repeatedly.
DSA wants to recruit them, train them, elect them—and use them to transform the country.
5. Turn ideological believers into a door-to-door army.
Money matters.
Advertising matters.
Social media matters.
But DSA understands something many political consultants have forgotten:
People are more difficult to ignore than advertisements:
- You can delete an email.
- You can skip an online advertisement.
- You can scroll past a political video.
It is harder to ignore a neighbor standing at your door.
DSA has explicitly argued that paid media is no substitute for an “army of volunteers.” DSA
Mamdani’s 2025 campaign proved the point.
During the Democratic primary, tens of thousands of trained volunteers participated in a campaign knocking on more than 1.6 million doors.
By the end of the general election, Mamdani’s field director reported more than 100,000 volunteers and approximately three million door knocks.
Those numbers are staggering.
But the method is more important than the number.
Volunteers were well trained and then canvased neighborhoods:
- They used text messaging.
- They called voters.
- They held local events.
- They communicated in multiple languages.
- They recruited people who had never before worked on a political campaign.
They were not simply telling people to vote for Mamdani.
They were inviting people to become part of a movement.
That creates a different kind of supporter:
- A passive voter may agree with you… a movement activist will work for you.
- A passive voter may like a video… a movement activist will knock on 100 doors.
- A passive voter may forget to vote on Election Day… a movement activist will make sure 20 friends vote.
DSA understands that difference.
Too many Republicans and conservatives do not.
6. Sell “affordability”—not socialism.
This may be DSA’s most effective marketing tactic.
Its candidates do not begin by explaining centralized economic control.
They begin with your pain:
- Your rent is too high.
- You’ll never be able to buy a house.
- Your grocery bill is exploding.
- You cannot afford childcare.
- Transportation is unreliable.
- You work hard but cannot get ahead.
These are real problems.
That is precisely why the message is so persuasive.
Mamdani did not lead with an academic lecture on democratic socialism.
He promised:
- Frozen rents.
- Free buses.
- Universal childcare.
- A higher minimum wage.
- Government-owned grocery stores.
Janeese Lewis George campaigned on subsidized or free childcare, expanded housing assistance, and more government services.
The promise is emotional and immediate.
The cost is distant and vague.
The voter is told exactly what government will provide—but not what government must tax, borrow, regulate, confiscate or control to provide it.
The benefit is personalized.
The burden is hidden.
That is brilliant marketing.
It is also profoundly deceptive.
The socialist pitch is rarely:
“Give politicians more power over your life.”
It is:
“You deserve this. Someone else will pay for it. And anyone who disagrees with us lacks compassion.”
That is why socialism can sound so good.
It identifies real suffering.
It promises immediate relief.
Then it conceals the price until government control has already expanded.
7. Use social media to attract attention—then use field operations to convert it.
Mamdani’s videos were creative.
They were energetic.
They made socialism appear optimistic, youthful, and culturally exciting.
But he did not win because of videos alone.
Social media generated attention.
The ground organization converted that attention into votes.
That distinction matters.
We saw the opposite happen in Los Angeles with Spencer Pratt.
Pratt’s 2026 campaign produced enormous online attention. One dramatic AI-generated campaign video received approximately 3.6 million views.
Some conservative commentators thought Pratt could win.
His social media presence appeared stronger than that of his opponents.
But social media popularity is not a field organization.
Pratt had no organized and trained Get Out The Vote (COTV) ground operation. He finished third with approximately 25.8% of the vote and failed to advance to the runoff.
His opponent, socialist Nithya Raman, had something more valuable than viral attention.
She had an organized political network capable of converting supporters into voters.
Karen Bass is an old-school Democrat socialist meaning she doesn’t use the word socialism. But she is and she used organized labor unions and the Democrat machine.
Pratt’s campaign exposed a mistake being made throughout conservative politics:
Views are not votes. Likes are not volunteers. Followers are not a ground game.
Social media can create awareness.
But awareness without mobilization is political entertainment.
DSA uses social media as the beginning of a conversion path:
- An emotional message attracts attention.
- Creative content makes the message shareable.
- Interested people are invited to volunteer.
- Volunteers are trained and given a community.
- The volunteers contact voters.
- The voters are identified and mobilized.
- The volunteers remain part of the movement.
That is direct response political marketing.
Every message asks for a next action.
Every action deepens the participant’s commitment.
Every campaign strengthens the machine.
8. Replace Christianity with an Americanized Marxist moral framework.
DSA does not merely offer government programs.
It offers a moral identity and an explanation of the world.
There are oppressors and oppressed.
Exploiters and victims.
The wealthy and the working class.
Greedy corporations and struggling families.
That framework comes directly from Marxism.
But DSA has Americanized it.
Class conflict is combined with race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, climate politics and nearly every other cultural division.
Every issue can then be explained as a struggle between an oppressor and an oppressed group.
Once that framework is accepted, socialism becomes more than an economic theory.
It becomes a moral crusade.
Most young DSA activists have rejected Christianity and belief in the true and living God.
But that does not mean they have abandoned religion.
Politics has become their religion.
The movement gives them identity.
Activism gives them purpose.
The cause gives them community.
Socialist ideology defines good and evil.
And the government they want to control becomes the institution expected to provide justice, security, equality and even meaning.
The state effectively becomes their god.
This produces enormous passion.
These activists do not merely vote…
- They organize.
- They protest.
- They recruit.
- They canvass.
They believe they are participating in a moral struggle to transform society.
But their moral framework is built upon relativism.
Biblical truth is rejected for the revolution.
Property rights can be redefined.
Religious liberty can be crushed.
Parents’ rights can be subordinated.
Free speech can be dismissed as “harmful.”
Almost any tactic can be justified if it advances the supposedly righteous cause.
That is one reason socialism is morally dangerous.
Christianity begins with the value of every individual created in the image of God.
Marxism begins by dividing individuals into competing groups for the good of the collective.
Christianity calls for voluntary generosity.
Socialism relies upon government coercion.
Christianity transforms the human heart.
Socialism attempts to transform society through power and force.
The socialist calls government redistribution compassion.
But giving away someone else’s money is not personal generosity.
Using government coercion to control what others produce is not biblical charity.
It is political power disguised as moral virtue.
9. Use every victory to produce the next victory.
Mamdani’s political organization did not disappear when he entered City Hall.
It multiplied.
His victory gave socialist candidates credibility.
It attracted new volunteers.
It produced new organizers.
It generated national media attention.
And it allowed Mamdani to use his position to endorse the next generation of candidates.
In June 2026, three Mamdani-backed candidates won New York congressional primaries.
That is how political power compounds:
- One campaign produces volunteers.
- Volunteers become organizers.
- Organizers recruit candidates.
- Candidates attract donors.
- Elected officials endorse new candidates.
- New victories attract more members.
Then the cycle begins again—with more money, more experience, more organization, a more powerful database and more credibility than before.
That is why DSA does not measure success only by the number of offices it wins.
It also measures whether a campaign has strengthened the movement.
Avila Chevalier made that goal explicit in a DSA candidate questionnaire.
She said her campaign would be used to build the local DSA branch, encourage people to find a political home and direct campaign structures toward long-term organizing.
The campaign is not separate from the movement.
The campaign builds the movement.
The elected official then helps build the next campaign.
That is the socialist machine.
What the politicians and commentators are missing
Most conservative commentators focus on the outrageous promises:
- Free buses.
- Government grocery stores.
- Rent freezes.
- Abolishing ICE.
- Defunding police.
Focusing only on the policy misses how DSA candidates are winning the power to implement it.
Others focus on the candidate’s personality:
- AOC is charismatic.
- Mamdani understands social media.
- Bernie Sanders sounds authentic.
That also misses the larger danger.
Charisma attracts attention.
Organization captures political power.
DSA’s success is not based upon one candidate.
It is based upon building a repeatable system that can produce many candidates.
That is what the talking heads are missing.
That is what much of conservative social media is missing.
And that is what Christians, Republicans, libertarians, free-market advocates and traditional Democrats must understand before the socialist machine becomes even more powerful.
The real lesson of DSA’s success
DSA has not repealed the laws of economics.
It has not solved scarcity.
It has not discovered how politicians can allocate resources better than millions of individuals making voluntary choices.
It has not explained why concentrating more power in government will make individual Americans more free.
Milton Friedman once challenged people to consider a profound contradiction.
A free society permits socialists to organize, speak and advocate socialism.
But would a socialist society protect an equally meaningful freedom to advocate capitalism and resist government economic control?
Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
Economic control never remains merely economic.
It eventually affects…
- Where you can work.
- What you can build.
- What you can buy.
- What you can own.
- How you can worship.
- What organizations can survive.
And which voices possess the resources to be heard.
That is why the growth of DSA is not merely a Democratic Party problem.
It is an American problem.
But DSA’s success also teaches an important lesson:
- Organization matters.
- Message discipline matters.
- Personal voter contact matters.
- Volunteers matter.
- Turnout matters.
Those who believe in freedom cannot defeat socialism by laughing at it.
We cannot defeat it by complaining about it.
And we cannot defeat it by assuming its failures are so obvious that no American could possibly embrace it.
Socialism sounds compassionate.
Its activists are passionate.
Its organization is growing.
The question is not whether freedom has better ideas.
It does.
The question is whether those who believe in freedom will learn how to communicate, organize and mobilize before it is too late.
Action:
Understand the deception—and help expose it.
You cannot expose socialism effectively until you understand why it sounds so attractive.
That is one reason I wrote The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream.
The book contains a complete chapter explaining what socialism is, how it is marketed and why its promises repeatedly produce economic failure, government dependency and diminished freedom.
Get a copy of The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream. Click HERE to order the book online.
You can order the book on Amazon HERE.
Or get the audiobook version HERE and on Kindle HERE.
You can also get an autographed edition online HERE or by phone at
615-814-6633 (M-F 10 am to 3 pm).
You can also send a check for $26.13 (including shipping) payable to Media Specialists and send it to this address:
Media Specialists
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Read the chapter on socialism.
Then share what you learn with your family, friends, church and community.
And do one more thing.
Share this article with someone who believes socialism simply means compassion, fairness or helping the poor.
Help them see what most political commentators are missing.
DSA is not winning because most Americans have embraced socialism.
It is winning because socialists are recruiting, training, organizing and mobilizing—while too many Americans who believe in freedom remain spectators.
The socialist machine is growing.
The question is whether those who believe in freedom will wake up, speak up—and show up.
FAQs:
Q: What is the main reason DSA-backed candidates are winning elections?
A: Disciplined organizing, volunteer recruitment, voter contact and turnout efforts matter more than campaign messaging alone.
Q: Why are primary elections important?
A: Low-turnout primaries and local races allow highly organized groups to have an outsized impact on election outcomes.
Q: What is DSA’s campaign strategy?
A: It focuses on recruiting organizers, building long-term volunteer networks and strengthening its movement between elections.
Q: What messaging approach does DSA use?
A: DSA emphasizes affordability issues such as housing, childcare and transportation to connect with voters.
Q: What role does social media play in elections?
A: Social media attracts attention, while organized field operations convert that attention into votes.
Q: What is the article’s overall warning to readers?
A: Opponents of socialism should pay closer attention to organization, grassroots activism and voter mobilization rather than focusing only on campaign rhetoric.
About Craig Huey:
Craig Huey is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and publisher of The Huey Alert and Direct Marketing Update. He is also the author of The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream, exposing the lies of socialism and defending America’s founding principles. Craig appears on national media such as FOX, FOX Business, Newsmax and more. He also co-hosts The Huey Alert Podcast with his wife Shelly and helps business leaders, Christians, conservatives, libertarians, young people and more understand the intersection of faith, politics, and freedom.