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OTHER VICTORIES FOR WORKING FAMILIES  
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Robert Kuttner
November 18, 2025
The American Prospect
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_ Zohran Mamdani got the headlines, but New York was not a one-off.
Candidates endorsed by the Working Families Party had amazing election
successes elsewhere in America, showing well-organized progressives
can beat the power of big money. _

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, center, had the Working
Families Party endorsement., Credit: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via AP
Images // The American Prospect

 

When the Working Families Party was founded in 1998, the idea was to
take advantage of the fusion law in New York that allows candidates to
run on more than one ballot line. That way, the WFP could work to help
progressive candidates win primaries and run on both the Democratic
Party line and the Working Families line. And unlike typical third
parties splitting the progressive vote, the WFP would never be in the
role of spoiler helping to elect a Republican.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani had the WFP endorsement. With
the endorsement came thousands of dedicated volunteers as well as
complementary wins for other public offices. WFP did not do it alone,
of course, but the party helped anchor a broad coalition.

WFP pursued a similar strategy in America’s only other fusion state,
Connecticut, working with other progressive grassroots organizations
such as the Connecticut Citizen Action Group. In a generation, these
efforts turned Connecticut not just from purple to blue, but to
progressive blue. Today, Connecticut has a progressive Democratic
governor in Ned Lamont, progressive senators in Chris Murphy and
Richard Blumenthal, and a working majority in the state legislature.

But in recent years, WFP has concluded that you don’t need fusion to
have a quasi-third party that works both with, and sometimes against,
Democrats. Even without fusion, it’s possible for WFP to create a
local party, recruit members, endorse candidates, and make members
available to work in campaigns. The 2025 local elections proved that
strategy to be an impressive success in places far from New York City.

WFP-endorsed insurgent progressive candidates won mayoral elections in
Seattle, Dayton, Ohio, and Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as Buffalo,
Syracuse, and Albany in upstate New York. And the strategy was
basically the same in fusion and non-fusion states.

Seattle was especially instructive. Community organizer Katie Wilson
announced her challenge to incumbent Bruce Harrell, who was running
for re-election in Seattle’s nonpartisan election. Wilson was
founder and lead organizer of the Transit Riders Union, which pushes
for more and better mass transit in Seattle.

In a February 2025 special election, Seattle voters passed Proposition
1A, which created a new business tax to fund social housing
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weaker alternative proposal endorsed by Harrell and business leaders,
rejected the business tax. The result was a victory for Seattle’s
progressives and helped push Wilson into challenging Harrell.

In the August nonpartisan primary, Wilson placed first, with 50.75
percent to Harrell’s 41.71 percent. Seattle’s business forces went
all out to defeat Wilson, and the final November election was a
squeaker. Wilson beat Harrell 50.20 to 49.47, or by just over 2,000
votes. Harrell finally conceded on November 14.

The volunteer effort swept other WFP-endorsed candidates into office,
including challenger Dionne Fosterfor a Seattle City Council seat, as
well as Eddie Lin and incumbent Alexis Mercedes Rinck, and Girmay
Zahilay as King County executive; and Erika Evans for Seattle city
attorney.

According to Vanessa Clifford, Northwest regional director for the
Working Families Party, the party was able to enlist about a thousand
campaign volunteers. Elsewhere in Washington state, Working Families
Party candidates now hold a supermajority on the Spokane City Council,
not famously progressive territory, thanks to insurgent WFP-backed
candidates’ wins over incumbents.

How did the WFP decide to move beyond fusion states?

In New York in 2009, they elected several stalwarts to the New York
City Council, including Brad Lander, who went on to win citywide as
comptroller, and Jumaane Williams, who won citywide as public
advocate. “We realized that this didn’t require fusion,” says
Joe Dinkin, WFP national deputy director. “It just required winning
Democratic primaries.”

According to Dinkin, WFP leaders were also intrigued by the success of
the Tea Parties as a “partylike structure” that was shaking things
up on the Republican side. So WFP gradually began organizing in about
15 states.

They’ve been able to elect two WFP-only members to the Philadelphia
City Council, oust a House Speaker in Delaware, defeat several
oil-and-gas Democrats in the New Mexico legislature, and a lot more.

What does this all mean? First, well-organized progressives can beat
the power of big money.

Second, since some of these areas are not exactly left-wing
strongholds, it challenges the mantra that successful Democrats need
to move to the center. As the party’s name suggests, candidates are
successful when they emphasize pocketbook issues that matter to
working families.

Third, there are more working families than billionaires. Democracy
still works when leaders inspire and mobilize ordinary people.

The WFP successes also remind us of the role of a party—to emphasize
a common ideology and agenda, to which candidates and members
subscribe. Activists and voters engaged to support the top of the
ticket are likely to support the whole ticket.

These are not bad takeaways for that other party—the Democrats.

_[ROBERT KUTTNER is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect,
and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His latest
book is __Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the
Struggle to Save Democracy_
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_Follow Bob at his site, __robertkuttner.com_
[[link removed]]_, and on Twitter.]__Read the original
article at __Prospect.org_
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_Used with the permission. © __The American Prospect_
[[link removed]]_, __Prospect.org, 2025_
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_Support the American Prospect_ [[link removed]]_._

_Click here_ [[link removed]]_ to support the Prospect's
brand of independent impact journalism._

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* Zohran Mamdani
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* Ned Lamont
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* Seattle
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* Katie Wilson
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