As a political party, elections are our primary point of intervention. On a day-to-day level, there are a number of practical things to keep in mind about elections:

• Elections are a critical movement tool towards building power and getting the goods. Elections are not enough to make real change on their own, but electoral intervention is essential.
  
  

• We need more of our people in office, so we are 1000% committed to the work of recruiting and training our own candidates from our communities.
  
  

• Direct and deep voter contact, and an authentic message targeted at the multi-racial working class, are the soul of our campaigns — not just because it’s how we win, but because it’s how we build our base, deepen alliances, and advance our ideology.
  
  

• Politics has a real impact on people’s lives and there is a real difference between winning and losing: we take this responsibility to deliver systemic change and material gains very seriously, even when the choices are tough.

Elections are an accelerated period in our work that allow us to build power potentially more quickly than we would be able to do otherwise. We sometimes speak about the significance of the “electoral moment.” It is a deciding point, both literally and figuratively. It is a moment when things are in flux. And it is a moment where we find ourselves in direct conflict with the established power brokers. If we use the moment well, we can build more power for our movement:  

• Elections allow us to exercise social power. By that we mean we are counting up and delivering a base. This is “people power” in its most basic form. And when we apply that power directly to a key leverage point – deciding who the deciders are – it allows us to move a political agenda in a way that no amount of “advocacy” or simply standing on the high ground would allow us to do.

• Elections are also moments that allow us to build political infrastructure. They can deepen alliances between both the organizations we work with, as well as among voting blocs. If through our work, season after season, we are able to consistently build winning electoral coalitions that are made up of various working class communities and the organizations and institutions that are embedded in those communities, we are building something that helps us set the political agenda. This is the kind infrastructure capacity that we need if we actually want to govern effectively.

• Finally, elections are moments for us to engage in the “battle of big ideas.” A lot of people feel deeply disengaged in elections because their lived experience tells them they will mean very little for their daily lives. However, if people are tuning in even a little bit, people also know that elections are supposed to be a debate about the kind of community or country we have. Therefore, the electoral moment creates an opening where we can make “ideological interventions” as a party. The idea here is that elections are moments where people are paying a little more attention. If we use the moment strategically, we can do things to shift the narrative – to change the debate. And success in doing this is another form of power that elections can help us build.