Eight months into Don­ald Trump’s pres­i­den­cy — and with the 2018 elec­tions fast approach­ing — the ques­tion of how the Left should engage with elec­toral pol­i­tics is again being hot­ly debat­ed. Should left groups fol­low Bernie Sanders’ lead and work with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty; should they strike out with a third-par­ty strat­e­gy; or should they eschew elec­toral work alto­geth­er in favor of strict move­ment building?

Through its expansion, the party is already putting the core insight of Ackerman’s proposal into practice: that a new party can be built even where electoral law makes maintaining an independent ballot line difficult, or even impossible.

With ener­gy mount­ing behind the grow­ing ​“resis­tance” move­ments, and with groups such as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca (DSA) swelling in ranks, this debate will prove cru­cial in deter­min­ing what role the Left plays in the com­ing elec­tion cycles.

One of the most valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to this dis­cus­sion is Seth Ackerman’s 2016 Jacobin essay ​“A Blue­print for a New Par­ty.” Ack­er­man presents the chal­lenges of orga­niz­ing for left pol­i­tics with­in a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty that relies heav­i­ly on cor­po­rate sup­port and an unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic inter­nal struc­ture. He also lays out the enor­mous legal and polit­i­cal obsta­cles fac­ing pro­gres­sive third-par­ty can­di­da­cies in the Unit­ed States.

As an alter­na­tive, Ack­er­man makes the case for a new par­ty that oper­ates inde­pen­dent­ly of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic estab­lish­ment but runs can­di­dates on Demo­c­ra­t­ic bal­lot lines when tac­ti­cal­ly advantageous.

Ack­er­man presents a num­ber of famil­iar pre­scrip­tions: This new par­ty should be demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly orga­nized, root­ed in the work­ing class and social move­ments, and sup­port­ed by orga­nized labor. But the key to mak­ing this strat­e­gy work, in Ackerman’s eyes, is that this new par­ty would have the flex­i­bil­i­ty to oper­ate either on or off the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty bal­lot line, cir­cum­vent­ing the restric­tive bal­lot access rules that ham­string many inde­pen­dent elec­toral efforts before they even begin. This strat­e­gy prop­er­ly places the ques­tion of what bal­lot line to run on in a tac­ti­cal rather than pure­ly ide­o­log­i­cal framework.

The argu­ment is refresh­ing and com­pelling. How­ev­er, the weak­est aspect of the piece is its dis­missal of the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty (WFP) . What­ev­er excite­ment may have been gen­er­at­ed by the Labor Par­ty effort of the 1990s, which receives much more atten­tion in the piece, it only ever ran one can­di­date for elect­ed office. This is large­ly because the Labor Par­ty was stuck debat­ing the cen­tral dilem­ma for third par­ty advo­cates in the U.S. two par­ty sys­tem: how to run can­di­dates inde­pen­dent­ly with­out play­ing a spoil­er role (that is, tak­ing votes from their ide­o­log­i­cal­ly clos­est oppo­nent in the race, gen­er­al­ly a Demo­c­rat). Con­se­quent­ly, the Labor Par­ty effort offers few­er lessons than one might expect. The WFP, on the oth­er hand, is an exist­ing elec­toral oper­a­tion root­ed in the labor move­ment that actu­al­ly runs can­di­dates for office, with many notable suc­cess­es under its belt.

Ack­er­man large­ly dis­miss­es the WFP due to the party’s endorse­ment of Andrew Cuo­mo in 2014. Endors­ing Cuo­mo, a neolib­er­al Demo­c­rat, drew the ire of many on the Left, and under­stand­ably so. But, tak­ing our cue from Ack­er­man, instead of reject­ing the WFP based on its Cuo­mo endorse­ment, we should exam­ine the party’s deci­sion close­ly as an exam­ple of the type of tac­ti­cal dilem­mas left par­ties face when they enter the elec­toral are­na: how to devel­op an ener­getic base, while main­tain­ing sup­port from orga­nized labor in order to nav­i­gate the treach­er­ous ter­rain of elec­toral pol­i­tics in the Unit­ed States.

Lessons from the Cuo­mo endorsement

The WFP’s elec­toral mod­el grew out of New York State’s ​“fusion” bal­lot­ing, which allows a sin­gle can­di­date to run on mul­ti­ple par­ty lines. This law has led to a pro­lif­er­a­tion of semi-inde­pen­dent par­ties, includ­ing the Con­ser­v­a­tive, Inde­pen­dence and Lib­er­al Par­ties. In order to main­tain their bal­lot lines, par­ties in New York must receive at least 50,000 votes in the guber­na­to­r­i­al race, either by endors­ing one of the major par­ty can­di­dates and attract­ing their votes to an inde­pen­dent line, or by run­ning their own can­di­date for gov­er­nor, as the Green Par­ty does.

Main­tain­ing a line is no easy feat. The Lib­er­al Par­ty failed to reach the nec­es­sary vote thresh­old in the 2002 elec­tion, a mis­step that cost it its bal­lot line per­ma­nent­ly. Its mis­take was endors­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date who dropped out of the pri­ma­ry too late for the par­ty to with­draw its endorse­ment, leav­ing the par­ty unable to reach the nec­es­sary vote thresh­old. It’s no small irony that the can­di­date whose failed cam­paign lost the Lib­er­al Par­ty its bal­lot line was Andrew Cuo­mo, in his first run for governor.



In 1998, short­ly before the Lib­er­al Party’s demise, the WFP stepped onto the scene, launched by activists behind the New Par­ty, ACORN and pro­gres­sive seg­ments of the labor movement.

The New Par­ty had been formed by orga­niz­ers Dan Can­tor and Joel Rogers in 1992 but was abort­ed by 1998, after the group lost a Supreme Court case that would have ren­dered all laws ban­ning fusion bal­lots unconstitutional.

Fol­low­ing the loss, New Par­ty lead­ers decid­ed to con­tin­ue the fusion mod­el, but sole­ly in New York. In its first elec­tion, in 1998, the WFP fell 5,000 votes short of the required 50,000, but did a hand recount that turned up some 6,000 uncount­ed votes, putting it just past the thresh­old. The par­ty has since grown its mem­ber­ship, and racked up some seri­ous wins, but the path has not been easy — or free of conflict.

Crit­i­cisms of the WFP’s guber­na­to­r­i­al endorse­ments, key to build­ing the organization’s pow­er, go all the way back to 1998. As recent­ly as 2010, the par­ty had to beg Andrew Cuo­mo to allow them to endorse him, lest they lose their bal­lot line. The WFP even went so far as to sign a pledge to sup­port Cuomo’s aus­ter­i­ty agen­da, with cuts to state spend­ing includ­ing for union contracts.

Six­teen years after the party’s found­ing, the 2014 elec­tions pre­sent­ed a major oppor­tu­ni­ty for the WFP to flex polit­i­cal mus­cle in New York state. Bill de Bla­sio, a close ally of the WFP, had just won the New York City may­oral elec­tion the year before. Par­ty lead­ers had close rela­tion­ships with the new may­or, whose polit­i­cal career they had helped to devel­op. De Blasio’s vic­to­ry helped sig­nal the WFP’s grow­ing polit­i­cal pow­er in New York.

The choice between endors­ing the incum­bent, Cuo­mo, or his pro­gres­sive pri­ma­ry chal­lenger, Zephyr Tea­chout — whom par­ty lead­ers had them­selves recruit­ed to the race — came down to a rau­cous 700-per­son con­ven­tion. It was a nerve-rack­ing and inspir­ing dis­play of real democ­ra­cy in action.

Yet this excite­ment was damp­ened by what, for many, was a dispir­it­ing out­come. Teachout’s impas­sioned speech to the con­ven­tion could not have con­trast­ed more stark­ly with the robot­ic video mes­sage from Gov. Cuo­mo, which many described as “ a hostage tape.” But in a rever­sal of the WFP’s humil­i­a­tion four years ear­li­er when it signed onto Cuomo’s agen­da, this time Cuo­mo pub­licly com­mit­ted to a laun­dry list of the par­ty’s pri­or­i­ties includ­ing the DREAM Act, a high­er min­i­mum wage and cam­paign finance reform.

On the con­ven­tion floor, those in favor of endors­ing Cuo­mo argued: Why back a long-shot chal­lenger and risk our entire polit­i­cal project, when the like­ly win­ner is endors­ing our agenda?

But behind the scenes, a dif­fer­ent, and per­haps even more com­pelling argu­ment was being made for Cuomo’s endorse­ment. Every major union that sup­port­ed the WFP had lined up behind Cuo­mo, in some cas­es wring­ing their own con­ces­sions from him. Some of those unions — most notably SEIU Local 1199 — pres­sured WFP lead­ers not to endorse Tea­chout, and in exchange, agreed to stop endors­ing pro-labor ​“lite” Repub­li­cans. If sin­cere, this agree­ment had the poten­tial to alter the New York State polit­i­cal ter­rain. With or with­out these con­ces­sions, how­ev­er, unions had a strong incen­tive to stick with an incum­bent who was high­ly like­ly to win re-elec­tion, and who direct­ly and indi­rect­ly influ­enced their mem­bers’ contracts.

These unions con­sti­tut­ed the pri­ma­ry fund­ing base of the WFP and were threat­en­ing to with­draw if Tea­chout earned the party’s endorse­ment. By the day of the con­ven­tion, a Tea­chout endorse­ment seemed to not only car­ry the exter­nal threat of a poten­tial failed cam­paign cost­ing WFP its par­ty sta­tus, but also an inter­nal threat of the par­ty los­ing its fund­ing, its con­nec­tion to union work­ers and its iden­ti­ty as New York’s de fac­to labor party.

In the gen­er­al elec­tion, Cuo­mo went on to win over his Repub­li­can chal­lenger by a com­fort­able mar­gin. Fol­low­ing his vic­to­ry, how­ev­er, Cuo­mo went back on a num­ber of the core promis­es he made to WFP at the con­ven­tion, includ­ing his com­mit­ment to help return the state Sen­ate to Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol. Once the endorse­ment was made, the par­ty had sig­nif­i­cant­ly less lever­age over a sit­ting gov­er­nor, who said as much short­ly after the con­ven­tion, telling reporters, ​“It’s very sim­ple, at these polit­i­cal con­ven­tions, you either win or you lose. And I won.”

Nev­er­the­less, a num­ber of the pol­i­cy out­comes that the WFP cham­pi­oned did come to pass with Cuomo’s involve­ment, includ­ing the his­toric increase in New York’s min­i­mum wage.

These are the chal­lenges and dilem­mas that any left par­ty will have to con­front as it attempts to build elec­toral pow­er: unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­toral laws and a his­tor­i­cal­ly weak and divid­ed labor move­ment. Rather than dis­miss­ing the WFP, then, we should name and assess these chal­lenges and dilemmas.

Work­ing with labor

How can a par­ty that relies on fund­ing and sup­port from the labor move­ment endorse inde­pen­dent pro­gres­sive can­di­dates in the face of oppo­si­tion from union leadership?

The 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry offers one les­son in the emer­gence of the rank-and-file-dri­ven Labor for Bernie net­work. This group helped mem­bers put pres­sure on their unions to sup­port Sanders, or voice dis­sent if lead­er­ship went against the membership’s will.

If a Labor for Zephyr net­work had exist­ed in 2014, it might have weak­ened labor lead­ers’ near­ly unit­ed front against Tea­chout. Sup­port­ing the growth of these types of bot­tom-up net­works could help the par­ty con­nect with rank-and-file union mem­bers, and make the case direct­ly to mem­ber­ship for pro­gres­sive polit­i­cal endorsements.

But at best, net­works like Labor for Bernie are only a par­tial solu­tion. They don’t address the fun­da­men­tal prob­lems fac­ing third par­ties such as the WFP: How can the par­ty oper­ate inde­pen­dent­ly while reliant on union fund­ing, and how can mem­ber­ship be acti­vat­ed into the kind of mass par­ty mod­el pre­scribed by Ackerman?

Sim­ply aban­don­ing the sup­port of major unions would be strate­gi­cal­ly unwise. While today’s labor move­ment is at a his­tor­i­cal weak point, it still rep­re­sents the most pow­er­ful vehi­cle for the orga­nized work­ing class to fight for their inter­ests. And at the very least, the WFP expe­ri­ence shows that it is pos­si­ble to con­vince major labor unions to put finan­cial sup­port behind a for­mal polit­i­cal par­ty oth­er than Democ­rats and Republicans.

In its ear­ly days, the WFP recruit­ed direct­ly from the ranks of union mem­bers, but the par­ty has grad­u­al­ly moved away from this mod­el. For­mal­ly, it still has chap­ters for indi­vid­ual par­ty mem­bers who are month­ly sus­tain­ers, but out­side Brook­lyn — the party’s home — these enti­ties are rel­a­tive­ly dormant.

This miss­ing mass base is a major lim­i­ta­tion on the party’s influ­ence. If there was ever a moment to work toward such a mass par­ty mod­el, it is now, as civic engage­ment increas­es under the threats to our democ­ra­cy posed by Trump’s pres­i­den­cy. The WFP is cur­rent­ly grap­pling with how to inte­grate the surge of new activists that came out of the Bernie cam­paign, and to bal­ance their ener­gy with the orga­nized inter­ests of the labor unions that fund the orga­ni­za­tion. This is not an easy task, but it is one that any seri­ous left par­ty must perform.

How to get much big­ger, faster

While the WFP was found­ed under the belief that fusion vot­ing was the key to elect­ing pro­gres­sive can­di­dates through an inside/​outside approach to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, recent years have seen the par­ty grow in places with­out fusion laws on the books.

In 2008, the par­ty moved beyond New York and Con­necti­cut to open up shop in New Jer­sey, oper­at­ing on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty bal­lot line, but still build­ing a unique par­ty iden­ti­ty. Inspired by the Tea Par­ty explo­sion in 2010, which cat­a­pult­ed con­ser­v­a­tives to office nation­wide, the WFP has since found­ed state orga­ni­za­tions to elect pro­gres­sives in Ore­gon, Mary­land, Penn­syl­va­nia, Wis­con­sin, Rhode Island, Neva­da, New Mex­i­co and Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

At this point, the WFP also has indi­vid­ual mem­bers in all 50 states, if not yet an orga­ni­za­tion­al pres­ence. The par­ty has per­formed suc­cess­ful­ly in Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pri­maries (Rhode Island), non-par­ti­san pri­maries (Ohio) and even won elec­tions on their own line with­out the Democ­rats (Con­necti­cut and New York). And on this rel­a­tive­ly new­er ter­rain, they have been a part of impor­tant min­i­mum wage and paid sick days vic­to­ries in D.C., Mil­wau­kee, Wis­con­sin, Philadel­phia and in 13 munic­i­pal­i­ties across New Jersey.

Through its expan­sion, the par­ty is already putting the core insight of Ackerman’s pro­pos­al into prac­tice: that a new par­ty can be built even where elec­toral law makes main­tain­ing an inde­pen­dent bal­lot line dif­fi­cult, or even impos­si­ble. The Rhode Island case is telling. Even with­out access to its own bal­lot line, in the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, the WFP helped replace incum­bent State House Major­i­ty Leader John DeS­i­mone with pro­gres­sive chal­lenger Mar­cia Ran­glin-Vas­sell. Three oth­er can­di­dates endorsed by the WFP also won their races in the pri­ma­ry contests.

Whether you agree with how the WFP has attempt­ed to resolve the dilem­mas it has faced, there are many lessons to be learned from the party’s expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly as left orga­ni­za­tions like the DSA attempt to run left can­di­dates for office this year, next year and beyond.