DSA chapters back about 100 state and local primary winners
The Wall Street Journal on Saturday catalogued the internal factions driving the Democratic Socialists of America in what the paper called a “breakout year” for the organization. Candidates endorsed by DSA chapters have tallied several high-profile congressional primary victories and about 100 state and local primary wins this cycle, according to an August Brookings Institution analysis cited by the Journal. On Wednesday, a DSA-backed candidate won the Providence, Rhode Island, mayoral primary.
The caucuses account for much of the DSA’s “chaotic and cacophonous reputation,” the Journal wrote. Their combined ranks are small — “no more than a few thousand members,” according to most estimates — but they include all 27 members of the organization’s National Political Committee, the leadership board. The Journal described caucus members as the movement’s “thinkers and leaders setting its course.”
The Socialist Majority Caucus, founded in 2019, holds four NPC seats and reads The Agitator. The Journal called it the DSA’s “most pragmatic, middle-of-the-road caucus” and its most popular. It includes figures from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s team, including Tascha Van Auken, who led the mayoral campaign’s field operation, and Cea Weaver, the mayor’s housing adviser. In political terms the SMC is more reformist than revolutionary, and it attributes the DSA’s rise to the success of socialist candidates like Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez in Democratic primaries. Neither Mamdani nor Ocasio-Cortez belongs to the SMC, though Claire Valdez, who recently won the Democratic primary for a House seat representing parts of Queens and Brooklyn, does. The caucus calls itself “materialists,” with more interest in changing real-world policies than in ideological perfection. “It’s not always a purity test there,” one observer told the Journal. The SMC is eager for an Ocasio-Cortez presidential campaign.
Groundwork, founded in 2023 and reading Building Up, holds five NPC seats and is often linked with the SMC. Its biggest difference is a heavier focus on climate policy; the caucus led the movement’s push for the Green New Deal. Members include Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of New York City’s DSA chapter, and Ashik Siddique, the NPC’s co-chair, the Journal reported. Groundwork wants to transform the DSA from a patchwork of chapters into a socialist political party with mass appeal, one that could influence future presidential elections. Its Atlanta chapter was active in the “Cop City” protests.
North Star, founded in 2018 and reading Dissent, holds no NPC seats and is what the Journal called the “antifascist old guard.” Its overriding priority is defeating President Trump, Trumpism, and Republican control of Congress, and the caucus is willing to back mainstream Democratic candidates to do so. “DSA and the broader left must join forces to confront the international rise of authoritarianism,” a North Star strategy paper states, urging the movement to jettison the DSA’s “go it alone” approach. The caucus describes itself as the heir to DSA co-founder Michael Harrington’s vision of striving for “the left wing of the possible.” It has struggled to attract a younger crowd that detests the Democratic Party and is animated by Palestine and anti-Zionism, the Journal reported.
Bread & Roses, founded in 2019 and reading The Call, takes its name from the women’s suffrage movement and a 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The Marxist caucus, which holds five NPC seats, was instrumental in the DSA’s backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign. Devoted to rank-and-file labor organizing, Bread & Roses wants to place its members in key industries — logistics and public education — to strengthen unions from within. “Our goal is to create a mass movement that can force elites to make concessions — and eventually remove them from power,” the caucus states, according to the Journal. Unlike the SMC and Groundwork, the caucus does not display the same electoral pragmatism, but it supports so-called class struggle elections and envisions a future in which the movement jettisons the Democratic Party to build its own rival.
The so-called “Commie Caucus,” founded in 2019 and reading Spadework, grew out of the East Bay DSA chapter and emphasizes housing and tenant organizing, the Journal reported. Members tend to be “small-c” communists with a younger, down-and-dirty vibe. “We have nothing but our bodies and minds, and we are forced to put them to work. We are compelled to carry out unfulfilling jobs, work long hours, piece together dangerous hustles, or else suffer precarity and deprivation. In short, our lives are dominated by capitalism,” they state, according to the Journal. The caucus rejects the ballot box for grassroots organizing, practices what it calls “selective recruitment” of new members, and maintains its own educational curriculum with an extensive reading list. It holds no NPC seats and is reputed to throw the DSA’s most raucous parties.
The Marxist Unity Group — the MUGs — focuses on academic theory and Marxist orthodoxy, with required reading and a special fondness for theorist Karl Kautsky. Founded in 2022 and reading Cosmonaut and Light & Air, the caucus wants the DSA to break with the Democratic Party and has led DSA debate on rewriting the Constitution and abolishing institutions like the Senate and presidency. Members skew white and male — “theory bros,” in one observer’s words — and tend to be skeptical of Ocasio-Cortez, preferring a presidential candidate the caucus describes as a “socialist tribune.” The MUGs hold three NPC seats.
SoR, founded in 2025 and reading Cosmonaut, is the DSA’s anti-Zionist caucus. Its leaders were active in the student encampments that sprang up after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the Journal reported, and pushed earlier DSA campaigns against Zionism. The caucus won passage at last year’s national convention of a measure making it an expellable offense for DSA members to support Zionism or even criticize the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. SoR holds four NPC seats, has protested the Trump administration’s intervention in Venezuela, and has gained standing alongside Israel’s war in Gaza, the Journal reported.
Red Star, founded in 2019 and reading Zenith, is the DSA’s Marxist-Leninist caucus. It emerged from the San Francisco DSA, where it had a tense relationship with Bread & Roses, and has had various relaunches and periods of “critical self-reflection” over the years; even some close observers struggle to define what seems like a caucus in search of a mission, the Journal reported. The caucus focuses heavily on organizational structure and theory and wants a more disciplined DSA that can eventually become a vanguard party to lead a revolution. Its anti-imperialist streak has translated, the Journal reported, to an embrace of “authoritarian, anti-American regimes” in Havana and Caracas and support for Hamas. DSA national co-chair Megan Romer is a Red Star member. The caucus holds three NPC seats.
Caracol, founded in 2023 and reading Monthly Review, is the eco-Marxist caucus that champions “de-growth” to save the planet and heal society. The snail is its mascot. Caracol members believe the Green New Deal championed by Ocasio-Cortez does not go far enough and that the very notion of “green” or “sustainable” growth is mistaken, according to the Journal. The caucus holds no NPC seats.
A separate Maoist caucus, founded in 2025 and reading BlackRedGuard’s Substack, is openly hostile to Ocasio-Cortez, whom its members deride as an opportunist and figurehead of the DSA’s right wing, the Journal reported. A section of its website is devoted to “common misconceptions about Maoism,” and its reading list ranges from the Communist Party of the Philippines to the Black Panthers. The caucus holds no NPC seats.