How Portland DSA and SIOs Shaped Socialism’s Win in the Suburbs

By Dave C.- A Portland DSA Member

Socialists are the underdogs. We are constantly fighting on hostile terrain and in uphill battles. It’s easy to get lost in the play-by-play of each election, but our goal isn’t to win just a single match; it’s to take home the trophy. (That means one day wholly defeating capitalism and creating a society for the benefit of all people, not just the billionaires.) To do that, it’s the job of our socialists in office (SIOs) and our movement to construct and take advantage of moments where we can beat back the capitalist forces and their faux-gressive candidates.

Portland DSA and our SIOs helped create the conditions for Dr. Tammy Carpenter’s successful takedown of her Chamber of Commerce-backed opponent. Let’s look at some of the key pieces and events that helped shape this match-up and how we assembled the forces that could win a tough election.

Palestine Solidarity

Shortly after October 7th 2023, DSA member Rep. Farrah Chaichi became one of the first public officials in Oregon to condemn the genocide of Palestinians.  Rumors started to circulate that she would face a Zionist-friendly challenger.

In January, Portland DSA worked with Intel employees to speak out against the genocide and the ways Intel was supporting it. This resulted in a massive divestment of Intel from Israel later in the year which the BDS Movement organization called “the largest BDS victory ever.” Importantly it started to prove that support for Palestine wasn’t simply a cause for the lefty super-activists in Portland but rather something a lot of people in the suburbs also cared about. 

Rep. Chaichi’s opponent, a military drone salesman, suffered a brutal defeat in the May primary. Rep. Chaichi and all of the pro-Palestine incumbents won that spring, which was a crucial piece to proving that pro-Palestine people belong in Washington County leadership. Creating and defending this space for Pro-Palestine politics laid the groundwork for later actions.

Strike Solidarity

Massive strikes rolled through the Portland metro area. Portland DSA helped to shape the political nature of these strikes both through public solidarity and communications about the meaning and stake of the strikes that expanded public consciousness. 2023 saw a massive teachers’ strike in the fall. This nearly month-long strike galvanized public support and worked to shift the narrative from blaming public sector workers to focusing on the state providing more funding. Corporate actors tried desperately to quash this energy, but did not achieve their ends.

In January of 2025, workers across the state of Oregon went on strike against Providence. This strike was unparalleled in size and scale to anything Oregon had ever seen, and made waves nation-wide. Patients over Profits and Safe Staffing were key phrases that DSA helped to promote and foster. Our work to bolster class consciousness from strikes helped build an environment primed for pro-worker messaging and for the public to believe that wins were possible, a necessary foreground to both our 2024 electoral wins and creating the ground we would operate on in 2026. 

Socialists in Office

There is a deep credibility crisis for elected leaders. A deep cynicism is felt widely and deeply that any elected official will actually pursue change. Our DSA City Councilors have worked to buck this cynicism and socialists (and the broad community) have reaped the rewards. 

These socialists:

• Stood up for workers in union disputes not just with the city or already powerful unions but for forming ones as well like Starbucks Workers United, and New Seasons Labor Union;
• Pulled money away from an over-bloated police budget to public parks;
• Uncovered unspent funds for housing and made a plan to use them to fund Rent-Assistance, a first of its kind Social Housing Fund, and Eviction Defense;
• Banned AI Price Fixing;
• Launched a BDS Pledge and local divestment investigation; and
• Stood strong against billionaire giveaways for a sports stadium.

Even when their efforts didn’t yield a result, the public advocacy has been noticed. What people have learned in the Portland area is that when socialists say something they mean it, that socialists show up for the cause of working people across the city. This is a key part of the socialist difference. We are winning over people away from cynicism. For an electoral project to take hold, people must believe that a better world is possible and be willing to believe those who take up our banner to fight for it. Our Socialists in Office can help create fertile ground for others.

Preparing for 2026

In the run-up to our endorsements for 2026, Portland DSA became much more serious and engaged in expanding and protecting our public profile and identity. This meant extensive efforts went into cohering and promoting a socialist bloc at city hall, and seriously upgrading the focus of our public communications.

We also understood that chapter buy-in had to be built. Deep organic connections are required to have leaders and systems ready for a strong DSA-centric campaign. Farrah Chaichi’s campaign helped raise our profile in Washington County. The organizing of Justin and Karin S around school issues in the Beaverton School District along with the revival of the washington county branch (now referred to as Tualatin Valley branch) were important to cultivating our presence in the area.

Our chapter had developed a sense for both opportunity and danger after the May 2025 school board elections both struck hard. Tammy Carpenter, a DSA member and school board director on the Beaverton School Board had organized a pro-labor slate in the recent elections. Only one of the pro-labor candidates won. Zionists outraged by Tammy’s advocacy and emboldened by the election results worked to cook up an investigation into Tammy’s pro-palestine and anti-genocide social media presence. You can read more about this here.

By the time we were ready to endorse, we already knew Tammy would be a bold voice for justice, for socialism and a credit to everyone who worked with her.

Tammy recruited DSA members to her Kitchen Cabinet and hired a DSA member as campaign manager. Tammy had both organic connections and a strong group of advisors to help her formulate her campaign, her platform and her connection to DSA. She was the first ever to seek and get a Cadre Endorsement from Portland DSA. Unlike any other campaign we were simply the whole shebang for a significant period.

This race was always going to be difficult. The establishment had a real favorite in city councilor Ashley Hartmeier-Prigg, a Chamber of Commerce darling, and one of the best faux-gressives out there. Ashley secured endorsements of nearly every democratic incumbent early and her kick-off party was a veritable directory of insiders and lobbyists. We knew we needed an incredible field game and a strong focus on differentiating ourselves from the squishy language of progressives. We needed a socialist champion. Dr. Tammy Carpenter stepped into the ring.

Playing Our Hand

DSA and Tammy together built such a strong field program with incredibly clear and bold messaging. We quickly garnered attention from potential endorsers as the most legitimate campaign with a connection to voters. Endorsers understood the campaign had DSA at the core. We kept strong messaging and democratic socialist ID throughout the campaign.  We knocked over 10,000 doors in the early part of our campaign eclipsing any other field effort in the state and racked up 35,000 over the course of the campaign. It was a struggle to get our coalition partners and even our media consultants to understand the importance of using the words democratic socialism. It’s clear that we would have benefited from a socialist media team, and that our constant and impressive field presence was crucial to showing that Democratic Socialism wasn’t a fringe word but a key part of running this winning campaign.

As the campaign progressed it became clear that a major local issue was shaping public sentiment: Data Centers. Socialists in office and candidates across the state were weighing in against and this naturally fit our basic mantra: Tax The Rich.

As reports of layoffs and funding deficits have rocked the public as well as many people’s personal lives, the idea of tax giveaways to Amazon and other large tech companies for data center building grew a substantial grass roots resistance. The only working champions of such ideas were the building trades whose members hoped to get work from the construction of those facilities. Dr. Tammy Carpenter helped to champion a local moratorium petition on data centers, and kept socialist messaging about who should pay for public goods at the center. KGW interviewed candidates opposing data centers and then mysteriously canceled airing it, this just served to make people even more interested in hearing what Dr. Tammy Carpenter had to say. (Read more about data centrism here)

As the race started to reach the end, our opponents made blunder after blunder, supporting deeply unpopular policies. Tammy’s opponent even sent out texts describing DSA as “too extreme” and fear mongering that we were going to take away peoples’ homes. The icing on the cake of this moment is that socialism was supposed to be the bogey man that our opponents wielded against working class candidates. It now appears to have had the opposite effect. The chamber of commerce used some sneaky polling that actually gave DSA credit for multiple other candidates running insurgent races. Whatever happens next it’s clear there is no excuse for hiding socialism in the closet, it’s actually a benefit to credibility and popularity to be a real out and loud socialist!

Preparing for our next Match

We are sitting in an incredible position in the Portland Metro area. Many of our incumbents are likely to win in their next personal match-ups, but when we are building a movement, it is insufficient to rest on the laurels of a few elected socialists. We must shape the ground for the next match-up where scrappy socialists can take on political machines by preparing people to fight for not just bread, but roses too.