On Oct. 3, Ran­dall Woodfin beat two-term incum­bent William Bell in a com­bat­ive runoff elec­tion to become the next may­or of Birm­ing­ham, Alabama.

"If you want to be successful, the foundation of your campaign should be rooted in the ground. Everything else is a supplement."

Woodfin’s plat­form includes sweep­ing pro­gres­sive poli­cies such as debt-free col­lege for high school grad­u­ates, a sum­mer jobs pro­gram for city teens and a $15 min­i­mum wage.

Woodfin beat Bell by a stag­ger­ing 17 points, even win­ning Bell’s own neigh­bor­hood precinct. The 36-year-old chal­lenger ran a year-long cam­paign that com­bined tech-savvy com­mu­ni­ca­tion and data tech­niques with an old-fash­ioned grass­roots ground game. His cam­paign team claims it knocked on 50,000 doors and made direct con­tact with 19,000 peo­ple. AL​.com polit­i­cal reporter Kyle Whit­mire said Woodfin’s cam­paign was the smartest he’d ever seen in Birm­ing­ham politics.

Late in the cam­paign, Woodfin was backed by nation­al pro­gres­sive groups includ­ing Our Rev­o­lu­tion and the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty, as well as Bernie Sanders.

But his cam­paign pledges weren’t all in line with a tra­di­tion­al left plat­form. For exam­ple, Woodfin also hopes to expand Birmingham’s police force. In a city where where vio­lent crime is on the rise, Woodfin says his goal is to improve the qual­i­ty of life for res­i­dents in all 99 neigh­bor­hoods by direct­ly address­ing their con­cerns, from com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty and job train­ing to police accountability.

In August, I shad­owed Woodfin for In These Times dur­ing a can­vas and saw first­hand his con­ta­gious charm, how quick­ly peo­ple seemed calmed by his soft-spo­ken demeanor, how hon­est they were with him. Those inter­ac­tions, he said, built his plat­form. Now, will those 19,000 peo­ple hold him accountable?

When I met Woodfin a week after his vic­to­ry at a café, he was still in high-five and hug mode, greet­ing dozens of patrons before we took a seat to talk about how his win is being viewed nation­al­ly and what he hopes to accom­plish first as mayor.

So, you whooped Bell. Why do you think the mar­gin was so big?

I think we put in the work. We spent our time engag­ing vot­ers direct­ly. The estab­lish­ment orga­ni­za­tions, all the peo­ple with the mon­ey, all the peo­ple in the know, they spent their time talk­ing to the choir. We went direct­ly to the con­gre­ga­tion — the vot­ers. We knocked on their doors. We called their homes. We lis­tened to them and we offered solu­tions to their issues, and we did that on repeat for a year and six weeks.

After you won, much of the nation­al media was quick to say Bernie Sanders or oth­er nation­al sup­port led to your vic­to­ry, but they missed the nar­ra­tive of your grass­roots campaign.

Our Rev­o­lu­tion sup­port­ed us in May. We had been run­ning for a year. So, from that stand­point, we put the work in. And I get [that narrative].

Why?

Local elec­tions are extreme­ly impor­tant in the nation­al con­text. Issues in 2020, issues in 2018, if they can’t be solved at the nation­al lev­el, then you have to cre­ate a bench. That bench is at the local lev­el. We’re look­ing at a coun­try where the major­i­ty of gov­er­nors are Repub­li­can, and so we have to look toward our Demo­c­ra­t­ic may­ors for solu­tions to address the issues that affect peo­ple every day.

You have to look at our plat­form, too. Our plat­form wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly ​“cen­ter.” It was ​“lean left.” What we’ve been doing [here in Birm­ing­ham] is not work­ing, in terms of actu­al­ly help­ing peo­ple. I think it’s com­mon sense, prag­mat­ic things we have to do. I don’t call it extreme.

So, there was also this nar­ra­tive of a far-left pro­gres­sive run­ning, but the plat­form you ran on, as you told me in August, came direct­ly out of the mouths of vot­ers you talked to while campaigning.

We got the endorse­ments of Our Rev­o­lu­tion and Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty, but we also got the endorse­ments of the Birm­ing­ham Police Depart­ment. Those things don’t usu­al­ly marry.

Con­sid­er what we did. Out of 69 precincts, we won 57. That is every gen­er­a­tion. That’s boomer, X, Y. That’s black, white. That’s home­own­er. That’s renter. That’s pub­lic hous­ing. That’s every­thing in between. We won the entire city: North, South, East, West. It was a sweep. That’s overwhelming.

We didn’t leave one vot­er group on the table. If you’re defin­ing that as ​“far left,” if that’s the new def­i­n­i­tion of far left, oh well. I don’t think it is. I think it’s one of the most peo­ple-cen­tered cam­paigns the city of Birm­ing­ham has ever wit­nessed. It’s one of the most peo­ple-cen­tered cam­paigns the state of Alaba­ma has ever seen. We end­ed up rais­ing over half a mil­lion dol­lars, $566-thou­sand and some change from almost 4,000 dona­tions. So it was every­thing we did, from doors to phone calls to fundrais­ing. It was grass­roots, grass­roots, grass­roots. Peo­ple, peo­ple, people.

Do you think run­ning that cam­paign allowed you to tap into a move­ment that’s hap­pen­ing in the South? Or do you think these peo­ple have been ignored in the South?

I think both. Hon­est­ly, it’s both.

We’re so quick to define peo­ple by par­ty line pol­i­tics, but I think most peo­ple don’t have can­di­dates who can rep­re­sent their val­ue sys­tem whol­ly, and they’re just look­ing for some­one who can do the best job.

We had to com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple who were giv­en 12 options for may­or. We made our way from 12 down to two. The work we put in was nev­er geared toward what we want­ed, but what the vot­er want­ed, what the res­i­dent needed.

So, does that make you feel a great deal of responsibility?

Man, lis­ten. It is heavy. We have to now gov­ern. We have to address pover­ty. We have to address bureau­crat­ic issues because peo­ple are ready to open their busi­ness­es. We have a cul­ture we have to change. We pro­vide a ser­vice on behalf of our city so we have to engage peo­ple dif­fer­ent­ly on behalf of City Hall. That’s a cul­ture shift. We’ve got to have a sense of urgency to address the issues of crime and work­force train­ing and work­force development.

What poli­cies will you put in place first to move these things forward?

I think we take an imme­di­ate look at trans­paren­cy. That’s the first thing we do. What­ev­er issues around nepo­tism and crony­ism exist; ex-ed out. I think the sec­ond thing we do is take a look at the strate­gic ini­tia­tives around edu­ca­tion and work­force and around com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment and crime.

You had huge grass­roots sup­port. What about those 19,000 peo­ple whose doors you knocked on? Are you putting an expec­ta­tion on them to participate?

Yes. So far, we’ve been oper­at­ing under two sce­nar­ios. Sce­nario one: Peo­ple don’t vote and com­plain. Sce­nario two: Peo­ple vote and then check out and don’t hold any­body account­able. I’m ask­ing those 19,000 peo­ple and the 211,000 peo­ple who live in our city to exer­cise a third option: Vote and hold me accountable.

Are there lead­ers local­ly or through­out the coun­try who you look to for that type of lead­er­ship and that type of integrity?

The new may­or in Jack­son, Mis­sis­sip­pi, [Chok­we Antar Lumum­ba]. That brother’s tight. We were endorsed and sup­port­ed by some of the same peo­ple. We’re both from the same gen­er­a­tion. I’m a huge fan of Walt Mad­dox in Tuscaloosa. He fights for the peo­ple he rep­re­sents. He does it with integri­ty. He does it with a sense of urgency. He does it for all peo­ple: black, white, every­thing in the mid­dle. He’s a people’s mayor.

The Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil has pushed for­ward pro­gres­sive poli­cies in the past. It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly a rar­i­ty to have some­one here who leans progressive.

I think the rar­i­ty is this: No one has seen in Birm­ing­ham, the largest city in Alaba­ma, Gen X and Gen Y cam­paign­ing with one anoth­er the way we have. I think it’s the cam­paign. It was how we wrapped tech­nol­o­gy around that grass­roots, door to door move­ment: micro-tar­get­ing, the dig­i­tal piece. I had a lot of young peo­ple around me.

What advice do you have for oth­er pro­gres­sive chal­lengers as they pre­pare for sim­i­lar races?

Out-orga­nize your com­pe­ti­tion. TV and radio are sup­ple­ments to orga­ni­za­tion and orga­niz­ing. If you want to be suc­cess­ful, the foun­da­tion of your cam­paign should be root­ed in the ground. Every­thing else is a supplement.

How will you run your office dif­fer­ent­ly than Bell has?

We’re going to be open. We’re going to be trans­par­ent. We’re going to have a sense of urgency every day, every week, every month. Not just dur­ing the elec­tion year. We’re going to have a vision and not just say this is what we’re going to do but we’ll report to you: This is what we’ve done toward that goal. It’s a col­lab­o­ra­tive style. Not just with the city coun­cil but with every­body out here, pub­lic and private.

You’ve talked about how a pro­gres­sive can­di­date or a can­di­date for the peo­ple on the local lev­el is a form of nation­al resis­tance. Can you talk more about that?

It’s the issue of inter­ac­tions with police and our young boys. It’s issues of fight­ing food deserts. It’s infra­struc­ture issues that are at the nation­al lev­el. It’s issues with edu­ca­tion, with Bet­sy Devos, the assault on pub­lic education.

The front line of these issues, par­tic­u­lar­ly in an urban area, is going to be the mayor’s office. We have bud­gets that are large enough to make a tan­gi­ble qual­i­ty of life improve­ment for the peo­ple we represent.