Ginger Jentzen, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, and RCV

The story of how RCV made one of the most exciting Socialist campaigns possible, while conventional voting sunk another in its infancy

Let’s talk about Ginger Jentzen and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, two socialist candidates — one for city councilor in Minneapolis, the other a candidate for the 4th district in Illnois.

Ramirez-Rosa

Earlier this month, Chicago Alderman and DSA member Carlos Ramirez-Rosa dropped out of the race for Congress in the 4th district of Illinois. It probably didn’t surprise anyone when he endorsed Chuy Garcia, a solid social democrat on the left end of that spectrum. With Chuy’s endorsement from Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution — and rapidly climbing poll numbers — the prospect of a Ramirez-Rosa candidacy was looking increasingly dim. He was lagging in support, with Carlos’ internal polling showing Garcia “crushing the field.”

Far more disappointing than the fact that Ramirez-Rosa didn’t run his candidacy to the end, to my mind, is the fact that pragmatically, he didn’t have much of a choice. It’s true that Garcia is basically an unstoppable force in this election, but the higher Ramirez-Rosa polled and the more serious his candidacy could become, the more leftists would stand to lose in in the 4th district, a fact that Ramirez-Rosa was all too aware of. Garcia and Ramirez-Rosa pull from the same voting bloc in this constituency. Although centrist candidates like Moreno have little pull in this race at this point, the race could become increasingly close, especially with how much Chicago elections run on insider deals and a lot of money. If Ramirez-Rosa’s poll numbers jumped higher and higher, the more threatening a centrist candidate could become as the vote was split between Chuy and Carlos.

In a different world, Ramirez-Rosa could have run a serious, issues-based campaign against Garcia. Rather than pulling votes from each other, they could bolster each other’s polls by competing for a similar constituency, who would be incentivized to turn out to to an exciting race by two visionaries for the cities’ future. Even if Ramirez-Rosa still polled comparatively poorly in such scenario, a serious campaign could still be a vehicle to bring socialist ideas to the forefront in a city that is one of the cradles of American socialism.

But there is a different world where such a thing happened — the Minneapolis Ward 4 city council race.

Ginger Jentzen ran as a candidate under the Socialist Alternative banner, much like the highly successful Kshama Sawant in Seattle. Although it was as much smaller race, the similarities are striking; an Our Revolution candidate, Steven Fletcher, ran against an openly socialist candidate, Ginger Jentzen. But the race did not end like Ramirez-Rosa’s.

Minneapolis has instituted a ranked choice voting system. Under RCV, voters are not restricted to a single choice, but are able to rank their choices in order of preference. A voter who liked Jentzen best and Fletcher second could mark that preference order on the ballot. It liberated voters to vote their true first choice.

Ginger Jentzen

Because of Minneapolis’ local ranked choice system, Jentzen did not have to make a strategic choice about whether to run, or face accusations of culling votes away from a “safer” social democrat and Our Revolution endorsed candidate. The accusations of her being a spoiler candidate could have tanked her candidacy in its’ infancy. In such a scenario, it wouldn’t matter whether Jentzen had a serious chance of winning or whether she ran a serious campaign and lost but furthered socialist issues. It would be over before she would have the opportunity to use her candidacy either as an opportunity to win a visionary seat or a vehicle to advance socialist ideas.

The ranked choice system had the affect of liberating Minneapolis voters to a true competition of leftist ideas. And as many in DSA and SAlt have long said, when socialist ideas are given a serious platform, the language of solidarity among working class people across racial and gender lines resonates. Liberated to vote their true first preference, Jentzen’s candidacy snowballed. She became a surprise front-runner in the race, despite accepting no donations from corporations or developers. Bold ideas for Minneapolis, like rent control, resonated with Minneapolis voters, and her long, hard work for the $15 minimum wage gave her credibility with voters.

Ultimately, Jentzen did not win. But SAlt themselves recognizes the importance of this historic victory for socialists. Jentzen won in every district but the wealthy downtown of Minneapolis. All of working-class Minneapolis united behind Jentzen, and she lost by only 1000 votes. Her candidacy has paved the way for Socialist candidates to run in Minneapolis and other ranked choice districts, knowing that they stand a serious chance in races when they are given the platform to advance socialist ideas and the ground game to reach out to working class voters hungry for a politics that believes in solidarity and material change for working class people everywhere.

DSA’s Refoundation caucus recently recognized the promise of ranked choice voting to help build a new Workers’ Party. In order to make that possible, we have a lot of work ahead of us — the road to passing RCV is a long and difficult one, but with enough manpower and the will to mount a serious campaign, is a reform that can pave the way for a politics that lets socialism break free of the Democratic machine.

*Note: fixed a few reversals of Ramirez-Rosa’s name. Sorry about that!