By Dave C., a Portland DSA Member
Portland DSA just swept our city council re-election campaigns. For two years, we were staunchly opposed by the Portland Metro Chamber (PMC), corporate media (like The Oregonian), and the so-called “moderates,” representing monied corporate interests. They all teamed up to try to knock out the socialists standing up for the working class and against billionaire giveaways. Doubling down for socialism is how we kept our seats and beat back the cynical attacks from our opponents.
This article details the tactics our opposition attempted, and how we prevailed despite all their money and entrenched political power. When we fight, we win.
DSA is Declared Enemy #1
After Portland DSA’s city council victories in 2024, the Portland Metro Chamber (the mouthpiece of big business) stated its number one goal many times and publicly: Remove DSA from Power. The PMC worked long and hard to try to pit the public against socialists, but our electeds aren’t just individuals, they are part of a working class movement that empowers them to stand strong for socialist principles. That’s why they won re-election.
The PMC Plan
In the run up to election season, the PMC and its conservative allies attempted to create faux scandals (with the help of conservative media) around frivolous ethics complaints and repeatedly presented DSA electeds as lacking in decorum as a way of distracting from DSA’s substantive politics. The PMC’s old guard allies like the Portland Police Association and notoriously conservative Northwest Oregon Labor Council worked in concert to (mostly unsuccessfully) try and prevent DSA priorities from being realized.
Once election season kicked in, the Portland Metro Chamber’s plan to knock out the socialists was simple, relying on three major pieces:
- Part One: Highlight the socialist opposition to a several hundred million dollar giveaway of public dollars to billionaire Blazers owner Tom Dundon for Moda Center renovations. They planned to separate the construction trade unions from Portland DSA to attack what had been part of their base.
- Part Two: Focus on DSA’s abolitionist demands as a way to attack councilors as anti-police.
- Part Three: Infantilize DSA Councilors as children who can’t get along in the press, and paint themselves as “normies” and “adults.”
PMC Plan Part 1: Use the Blazers and Stadium Giveaways
While the PMC has lots of money and influence on papers and editorial boards, it often has little sense. It planned to attack our councilors and any politician who dared defy their giveaway, but didn’t attempt to get public buy-in at all, even going so far as to use a code name to hide their plans. So when Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane went public with her opposition, joined by Mitch Green and Angelita Morillo, they beat PMC to the punch. Portland DSA supported our councilors in bringing this backroom deal into the public with a simple message: No Bailouts for Billionaires.
Despite their attempts to fearmonger our basketball-loving public that the team would simply leave the city without this significant expenditure of public money to a private owner, people just didn’t buy it. Many voters looked to our three councilors up for re-election as leaders on the issue. A few weeks after, a poll was released showing a favorability rating of 7% for Tom Dundon, and a supermajority positive rating for DSA.
Doing the right thing and fighting to have public dollars do public good, ending up rewarding the DSA councilors rather than punishing them. A few trade unions did give and then rescind their endorsements of our councilors but this seemed to have little effect and drew little attention because the working class voters of Portland are deeply polarized against the Moda Center, so endorsements based on it proved to have minimal impact on the election.
PMC Plan Part 2: Highlight DSA’s Abolition Demands as Unfair to Police
Next the PMC tried using DSA’s abolitionist demands to attack our councilors. The Oregonian, The Portland Police, and the PMC all rallied around a “revelation” of Councilor Green’s 2020 tweets involving the police. To further corner him as anti-police they highlighted the goal of abolition in the Workers Deserve More platform. They called on him to resign and did everything they could to whip up a storm against him. Councilor Green, a true DSA candidate from the socialist movement, didn’t back down and held to his convictions. He highlighted the enormous protests of 2020, the wrongdoings of the police during that time, and lasting public sentiment that the police are a public adversary, not a public good. The result of their blitz: small donor donations to Mitch Green surged, his public profile grew, and the police ended up taking down their press release against him.
PMC Plan Part 3: Try to Punish DSA with Respectability Politics
Lastly, the PMC turned to raising issues of decorum and “getting along.” Angelita Morillo, city councilor for District 3 and perhaps our most electric and talented social media user, drew ire from many outlets for “acting childishly.” Her big sin? Saying out loud what was happening in real time and having a following. Far from being a downside, her public platform, clear messaging, and simple language that doesn’t hide the power dynamics at play is what many people love about her.
Angelita’s class struggle content drives the PMC insane, but it resonates with ordinary people and demystifies the goings-on of City Hall. The PMC tried to generalize this to all the DSA incumbents and spin a narrative about our inability to get things done. This attack missed as many people saw right through it. Angelita Morillo and Tiffany Koyama Lane are actually the councilors who have passed the most legislation this term. The public knew what their critics actually wanted done were more shady backroom deals.
Bonus: Muddy the waters with empty suit faux-gressives
Not content with this line of attack, the Portland Metro Chamber also tried to prop up a fake progressive funded by Trump/Drazan donors: Kellie Torres. What’s telling is that they needed to cloak her in progressive language. This move to muddy the waters instead of running directly on their values is a sign of the strength of our candidates and message. The PMC decided they couldn’t attack our values, just try to persuade voters that someone else would be more effective and “normal.” These attacks don’t work when we are rooted in the working class and part of a movement. We outworked their downpour of cash because we are not just a pile of money, we are real people with friends and connections instead of PMC stooges inside an empty suit.
Now more than ever is the time to double down on socialism forward campaigns. Attacks on us rely on confusing our candidates with progressives. Adopting the Democratic Socialist label and heavily associating with DSA can avoid this confusion.
We Win by Being a Movement
It wasn’t just badly placed attacks from the Metro Chamber at play. It was also our councilors’ proactive policy and presence that won voters. We pursued housing with a first-of-its-kind Social Housing program, Renter Rip-Off hearings, and an AI-Price Fixing Ban. We responded to ICE with a detention center impact fee, boosting the ICE tracking network run by Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, and passing an un-masking ordinance requiring officials to identify themselves as law enforcement. When federal agents shot a local, our councilors joined 400 people in a rally outside City Hall protesting ICE, and ditching the press conference the Mayor held alongside the police. Our councilors are now in the midst of pursuing a fair share ordinance to tax large corporations and reduce costs for small businesses. They are working on a human rights screen for city investments as part of the BDS movement. They’ve provided leadership in trying to stop the Zenith oil pipeline. What our councilors do is exciting to both Portland DSA members and the general public.
Our Electeds Organize
Our councilors also didn’t confine themselves to the traditional role of city councilors. Many city officials and others said that it really “wasn’t their problem” and “it’s complicated” when the Portland Public Schools superintendent announced a plan to close 14 schools in mid-October. Teachers, parents, and the community were up in arms. Hundreds rallied at the next school board meeting. Tiffany Koyama Lane, a PAT teacher, alongside Mitch Green and Angelita Morillo, showed solidarity and not only posted videos calling on the school board to seek other solutions, but also brought a resolution to council to have the city aid in getting more funding from the state. Our councilors, alongside our newly elected socialist in the suburbs Tammy Carpenter, also worked to expose how these closures were connected to the privatization movement through an organization called Chiefs for Change that advocates for taking money away from public schools and replacing them with charter schools.
Double Down For Socialism
The lesson from this election should be clear: never back down from socialist principles. Organize with the working class and stand for what is right and you can have an army behind you! Many critics inside and outside of DSA want to say that the path to DSA’s growth in political power and relevance is to eschew our more radical demands in exchange for more seats or friendlier relations with some power brokers. We just proved that wrong.
Portland DSA knows our strength is in our democracy and our people, not in the help that some insiders can give. Our electoral program isn’t the result of a single tendency or group, we work together to ensure that when Portland DSA is on the ballot, we win. Our democracy and buy-in is felt widely and deeply across the chapter. It’s what enables us to kick off our campaign season with over 170 canvassers in a single day. It’s how we build a program that knocks over 50,000 doors for our endorsed candidates.
Portland DSA knows we can’t purge our way out of disagreements. Only by embracing our comrades can we get hundreds of members to give up their time and energy to fight for a better world. Portland DSA members see our organization, our vision, and our socialists in office as something worth fighting for.
Everybody wanted to know what Portland DSA would do if we didn’t win.
I guess we’ll never know.