The real story behind DSA’s decision to unendorse AOC

On Wednesday night, the national leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America announced that it had withdrawn its conditional endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the best-known DSA member in the country. 

In a statement announcing the decision to withdraw its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez, DSA’s national leadership suggested that the congressional representative’s stance on issues related to Israel and Palestine had cost her the socialist organization’s endorsement.

“A national DSA endorsement comes with a serious commitment to the movement for Palestine and our collective socialist project. … To build a socialist movement that’s capable of defeating capitalism, we must demand more from leaders in our movement,” the statement reads.

The statement specifically criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to vote for a House resolution that labeled “denial of Israel’s right to exist” as an example of antisemitism and her recent participation in a panel about antisemitism.

“AOC recently hosted a public panel with leaders from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, lobbyists for the (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism,” the statement reads. “On this panel, she conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions. This sponsorship is a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israeli apartheid and genocide through political and direct action in recent months, and in decades past.”

In turn, Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, condemned DSA for pulling Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement. “The fact that our – nuanced, complex, and frank – conversation on antisemitism is somehow beyond the pale for DSA should tell you everything you need to know,” she wrote in a post on X.

But despite the statement from the organization, the sudden withdrawal of DSA’s endorsement has less to do with Ocasio-Cortez’s actions than with the byzantine factional politics of DSA’s national leadership.

NYC vs. National DSA

It’s important to distinguish between the New York City chapter of DSA, which has a close working relationship with Ocasio-Cortez’s office, and the national leadership of DSA, which does not.

As City & State previously reported, NYC-DSA voted overwhelmingly to endorse Ocasio-Cortez earlier this year, with more than 80% of DSA members in the chapter’s Queens and Bronx/Upper Manhattan branches voting in favor of endorsing her for reelection. 

Even though the national DSA organization has now withdrawn its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez, the local chapter’s endorsement remains in effect.

“In February 2024 NYC-DSA, a chapter of the National DSA, voted to re-endorse Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as we have every election year since 2018. Today, AOC is still endorsed by NYC-DSA. NYC-DSA withdrew its request for a National DSA endorsement after the primary passed and the National Political Committee honored this request,” the NYC-DSA chapter said in a statement.

“It is not uncommon for chapters and National DSA to diverge on endorsements,” the statement continued. “Her endorsement passed with significant support in the chapter, and the chapter remains supportive of her candidacy.”

After NYC-DSA endorsed Ocasio-Cortez, the chapter requested that the national DSA organization also endorse her for reelection, as it had every cycle since she first ran in 2018. 

But some within the organization’s national leadership were reluctant to re-endorse the progressive member of Congress. In May, DSA’s “Red Star” caucus, which describes itself as a “revolutionary Marxist caucus within the DSA,” published a post titled, “Endorsing AOC is a Bridge to Nowhere.” That post accused Ocasio-Cortez of abandoning DSA and faulted her for encouraging DSA members to support President Joe Biden’s reelection, despite Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. 

Caucus politics

To understand why national DSA first endorsed and then un-endorsed Ocasio-Cortez, one must be familiar with the internal politics of DSA’s 18-member national leadership body, known as the National Political Committee, Members of the National Political Committee are elected to two-year terms during national DSA conventions, which take place every two years. 

The current make-up of the National Political Committee is deeply divided between two opposing factions. One faction, often identified as the “left” flank of DSA, includes members of Red Star (the group that published the post criticizing Ocasio-Cortez) and the Marxist Unity Group, along with their allies. It controls between seven and eight of the 17 votes on the National Political Committee. The opposing faction, generally considered the “right” flank of the socialist organization, includes members of the Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork. It controls six votes. Then there’s the Bread & Roses caucus, which controls three votes and often aligns with Red Star but also acts as something of a swing vote.

Red Star was generally opposed to and voted against endorsing Ocasio-Cortez for reelection, while Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork favored the endorsement. Bread & Roses voted with the Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork to endorse Ocasio-Cortez, but it also voted with Red Star and Groundwork to impose strict conditions on that endorsement (while Socialist Majority Caucus abstained from that vote). Red Star also wanted to require Ocasio-Cortez to affirmatively accept the conditions before receiving the endorsement, but that was opposed by Groundwork, Socialist Majority Caucus and Bread & Roses.

The result was that DSA’s National Political Committee voted to endorse Ocasio-Cortez but only so long as she opposed all funding to Israel, signed on to the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement, voted against bills equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and participated in DSA’s Federal Socialists in Office committee. If she violated any of those conditions, the endorsement would be rescinded. This was the first time that DSA had ever issued a conditional endorsement.

Sam Heft-Luthy, a member of the Red Star caucus who serves on the National Political Committee, explained the reasoning behind his vote to City & State.

“Red Star's NPC members voted yes on an amendment to the endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez adding expectations because we believe that DSA should set high standards for endorsed electeds to be strong representatives of DSA at all levels,” Heft-Luthy said in a statement. “We organize for this in local chapters and with our positions in national leadership. Commitments to Palestinian liberation and support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement are the clearest examples of what we want DSA’s representatives to be fighting for.”

Renée Paradis, a member of Socialist Majority Caucus who serves on the National Political Committee, disagrees with that logic. An election attorney who has worked directly with DSA-backed candidates like state Sen. Julia Salazar and New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán, Paradis said that unilaterally imposing strict conditions on endorsements will just alienate elected officials who work closely with DSA. 

“AOC is one of the most prominent voices for democratic socialism in the country, and an elected official whom our members widely supported re-endorsing,” Paradis said in a text message. “I disagreed with putting conditions on the endorsement because they hadn’t been discussed with the chapter or the candidate, and it was three days before the primary.”

DSA and Palestine

Of all organizations adjacent to Democratic politics, DSA may be the most critical of Israel. The socialist group is proudly anti-Zionist, has embraced the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement against Israel and has consistently called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Its endorsed candidates – including Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, state Sen. Julia Salazar and Michigan’s Rep. Rashida Tlaib – are among the most pro-Palestine elected officials in the country. 

DSA has repeatedly been accused of engaging in antisemitism – most notably after the group’s New York City chapter promoted a controversial pro-Palestine rally on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, At that rally, which was not sponsored by DSA, one speaker spoke callously about Israeli victims of the Hamas attacks, and an unidentified attendee at the rally was photographed holding up a phone with a photo of a swastika on the screen. The New York City chapter later apologized for promoting the rally.

Although mainstream Democrats may view DSA as a radical pro-Palestinian group, the socialist organization is actually viewed skeptically by some pro-Palestinian activists, who feel that DSA is too closely tied to Democratic elected officials like Rep. Jamaal Bowman. More radical pro-Palestinian activist groups like Within Our Lifetime and Palestinian Youth Movement – which have organized many of the largest pro-Palestinian demonstrations in New York City – have sometimes refused to work alongside DSA. Last month, Within Our Lifetime even protested a rally in the South Bronx featuring Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Even though most in DSA are highly critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian self-determination, there are still divisions within the organization. Red Star has argued that all Palestinian armed resistance against Israel is justified – a position it detailed in a post with the unsubtle title, “We Do Not Condemn Hamas, and Neither Should You.” Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork, Red Star’s ideological opponents, have condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack while still supporting the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement.

Withdrawal symptoms

By the time that the National Political Committee voted to conditionally endorse Ocasio-Cortez, it was June 22, with the primary election happening on June 25. Ocasio-Cortez ended up defeating her moderate challenger in a landslide, and her campaign was only notified of the DSA’s national endorsement after the election was already over.

At this point, leaders of NYC-DSA decided that the national endorsement was more trouble than it was worth – coming as it did after the primary election was over and with a host of strict conditions attached. On June 29, four days after the primary election, NYC-DSA’s steering committee formally requested that the National Political Committee withdraw its conditional endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez.

The Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork supported NYC-DSA’s request to withdraw the endorsement. However, Red Star – the very same group that had initially opposed endorsing Ocasio-Cortez – opposed withdrawing the endorsement. 

“We voted against the motion to revoke the national endorsement as requested by New York City DSA’s Steering Committee because we believe it's important for the DSA’s national leadership to make decisions based on what makes sense for DSA's national political work and because we think it would be better for DSA to stick by its decisions,” Heft-Luthy, the Red Star member, said.

Socialist Majority Caucus rejected that logic, arguing that the national leadership should have deferred to the New York City chapter’s wishes. 

“When NYC-DSA withdrew its national endorsement request, I voted to follow DSA’s universal past practice of deferring to chapters on national endorsement requests,” Paradis said. “We trust local chapters to be the most informed on local conditions and relationships with electeds, and my understanding is that NYC-DSA did not believe it was strategic to issue a conditional endorsement days after the election. I think it’s notable that those who opposed deferring to the chapter were against the endorsement in the first place.”

Once again, Bread & Roses was the swing vote, joining with Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork to vote in favor of withdrawing the endorsement.

Controlling the narrative

Once the endorsement was withdrawn, members of the National Political Committee had to determine how to inform members about the decision. Again, Red Star found itself on the opposite side of the issue from the Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork, with Bread & Roses in the middle. 

Red Star and its allies – who had opposed withdrawing the endorsement – pushed to release a public statement about the endorsement withdrawal that was critical of Ocasio-Cortez’s position on Palestine. 

“We voted in favor of the statement released by the NPC because we believe that it's important for the socialist movement for its leaders to be able to make it clear to the membership and the public the political stakes of the decisions we make and explain our work openly,” Heft-Luthy said.

But members of Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork opposed releasing a public statement, fearing that it would lead to misleading headlines about DSA disavowing Ocasio-Cortez. 

“I opposed releasing a public statement because I believed that it would create the mistaken impression that a procedural decision to respect the will of a local chapter represented an organizational decision to de-endorse a candidate,” Paradis said. “I don’t think releasing the statement helped build power or unify the organization.” 

In the end, Bread & Roses joined with Red Star to support releasing the statement to the public.

The result was that the group most skeptical of Ocasio-Cortez, which had opposed endorsing her in the first place and then opposed withdrawing the endorsement, ended up writing the explanation of what happened – a statement that heavily implied that DSA had unendorsed Ocasio-Cortez for being too pro-Israel, even though the endorsement was actually withdrawn because Ocasio-Cortez’s allies in the New York City chapter asked that it be.

Ultimately, none of this internal DSA drama really matters, except insofar as it leads observers to conclude (incorrectly) that DSA members are abandoning Ocasio-Cortez en masse. (The National Political Committee solicited comments from DSA members across the country during its endorsement process, and roughly 70% of those comments supported re-endorsing Ocasio-Cortez, according to Paradis.)

To the extent that DSA matters at all to Ocasio-Cortez, it is NYC-DSA – not the national organization’s leadership – that is key. The New York City chapter is the one that works closely with the representative’s congressional office and mobilizes armies of volunteers to canvass and phonebank for her campaign.

But the incident does highlight a growing distance between Ocasio-Cortez and some on the left, who worry that her once-radical politics have moderated as she has become more comfortable in Washington. Like the Democratic Party, DSA is a “big tent” organization with its own internal divisions between political ideologues and (relative) pragmatists. Within DSA, everyone is on the far left, but some are further left than others.