One spring day in 2022 I was happily ensconced in my upstairs writing alcove, dressed in pajamas and bathrobe as is my wont until I put on pants and shirt to go out for lunch, when I heard a knock on my front door. Spectrum? Hounding me again to sign up for cable service? No, a young man and a young woman asking if I knew of Sarahana Shrestha running against Kevin Cahill for our state Assembly seat. Now, I'm always brooding about politics, but national, never local. At that time I was furious at U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for blocking President Biden's big plans. But I did feel pleased with myself for at least knowing who Kevin Cahill was. Not long beforehand I'd called his office (not something I'd done before) to complain about a news report re: crypto mines scouting upstate New York. Old factories to house the computers. Old power plants to fire up again for electricity. Fresh new tons of emissions to add to global warming. An ardent environmentalist, I wasn't happy about this idea as I told Cahill's staffer on the phone. The state urgently needed to enact a moratorium. His reply? (At least as I heard it.) "Yeah, yeah," as if he knew my spiel better than I did.

When I shared my outrage over this rudeness with the canvassers on my porch, the young man warned, "Don't get me started on crypto mines." Instead, they steered the conversation to Sarahana Shrestha, whom I quickly decided was our upstate version of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a dark-haired woman ready to fight. I took their vibrant orange and yellow campaign card – Shrestha does her own graphics, which I'm convinced are part of her success – and pinned it to my fridge where it remains to this day, a souvenir of the door knock that changed my life. I voted for her, later canvassed for her (a few times), and started obsessing over local politics. I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of us who've had this experience of being captivated by the campaign efforts of our local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Presidential campaign turbocharged the growth of the DSA originally founded in 1982. For years a small group of about 8,000 members, typically 65 or over, grew to 55,000 members within two years, flooded by millennials in their 20s and early 30s. In the winter of 2017 a dozen people met in a Peekskill coffee house to draw up the by-laws for a Hudson Valley chapter of the DSA. Then they reached out to all the new members registered through the national DSA to meet one another and talk about socialism.

The 2018 primaries brought the next great change. AOC, a 28-year-old bartender, upset a longtime Democratic incumbent by marshaling a small army of canvassers to door-knock her district. If politics is organized money vs. organized people, she proved that people can win. She rocketed to fame and may now run for president.

Yet the more significant victory for DSA was an upset by Julia Salazar, a 27-year-old DSA organizer, for a state Senate seat in Brooklyn. While AOC had been recruited and managed by Justice Democrats, a new campaign PAC for progressives, Salazar ran her campaign through her DSA chapter. In 2019, the original Hudson Valley DSA split into Lower Hudson Valley and Mid-Hudson Valley (HMVDSA) chapters. At MHVDSA's first general meeting in Kingston, Salazar and her campaign manager were featured guests. Many in the audience of 60 to 80 were veteran campaigners for Bernie and other causes. DSA had made paper endorsements in the past, granting its seal of approval without putting in much effort for the candidates. Now might MHVDSA really jump into electoral politics and run its own candidates? If DSA could win in New York City, why not upstate?

Well, for one, canvassing isn't the same. As DSA veteran Peter Frase points out, he could complete an entire shift in a city apartment complex without having to cross the street, whereas he could spend a long afternoon driving up long driveways outside of New Paltz. Yet canvassing still works, no matter how much time and effort it takes. In our age of both information overload and social isolation, two people showing up on your doorstep in earnest support of a candidate can make a lasting impression. (See above.) It's not that people need to be persuaded about an issue like public power or universal healthcare – these ideas are already in the public mind – it's that they need to be convinced that somebody is out there actually trying to make them happen. Nor is canvassing about persuasion. It's about identifying likely voters who can later be reminded by phone to get out and vote.

The first foray into campaigning didn't go well. A special election was held after the Assembly member for the district that included Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, and Beacon, Frank Skartados of Milton, died of cancer. The DSA-backed candidate finished well behind Jonathan Jacobson, a longstanding political figure from Newburgh.

2021 brought better luck. In Newburgh Giselle Martinez, 23, and an aide to Jacobson, won a city council city seat as an MHVDSA candidate. Focused on affordable housing, she won handily against older political veterans.

In Kingston, Phil Erner, a farmer and an activist, pulled off a shocking upset, defeating in a primary none other than the Democratic chair of the Ulster County Legislature, David Donaldson, a veteran of 28 years. To the establishment, Erner was a "nobody," a guy on a bicycle, but his no-budget grassroots canvassing worked when he won the primary by 14 votes (248 to 234). Perhaps in disbelief, Donaldson ran as a third-party candidate in the general election only to be thoroughly rebuked, finishing far behind both Erner and the Republican.

Yet Erner's story is a reminder that MHVDSA didn't exist in vacuum. Our region had many more progressive groups, even among Democrats. In fact, MHVDSA was pretty small at the time. Erner had moved to the area to work on farms in 2014, but by 2019 he lived in Kingston and got involved in various causes: community gardening, a public transit campaign (that eventually led to free county bus service and a wage hike for the drivers), eviction defense work and, after George Floyd's death, Wednesday Walks for Black Lives. (In 2020 he also took time out for "Bernie Journeys" to Iowa and South Carolina.) These groups spoke before the Kingston Common Council and Ulster County Legislature, which led them to decide they needed one of their own in these seats of power.

Another point to remember: Voters don't vote for socialism. They vote for a fresh face, for reform. They vote against an outrage. Donaldson supported a $30 million property tax break for the Kingstonian in Uptown, an upscale project with both apartments and a boutique hotel, i.e. a lighting rod for anger over gentrification. Notably, the school board opposed these tax breaks for undercutting their future tax revenues. Donaldson backed challengers in a school board race only to see them lose by three-to-one margins. His beloved tax breaks weren't a winning issue. Savvy, even if novices, Erner's campaign reached out to school board voters to find a ready pool of supporters. Now, an ardent socialist would argue that the Kingstonian's huge tax deal exposed the flaws of capitalism, but I suspect that most votes simply resented the rich for getting richer at their expense.

In his travels Erner had met DSA members on Bernie campaigns and at a Hunts Points strike in the Bronx where they joined in the picket lines alongside 1,400 workers at this huge food distribution center. Back home he joined MHVDSA and recruited their help with his campaign. Pete Cavanaugh, Sarahana Shrestha and a few others became his kitchen cabinet. He himself knocked on doors six days a week, but couldn't do it all alone. They designed his materials and organized a robust canvassing effort that ultimately reached 1,000 doors. Cavanaugh made it clear to me that they weren't in this race to "send a message" or "claim a moral victory." No, they wanted to win, period. And they did, a stunning upset. They'd gotten a quick and dirty education in grassroots campaigning, or as Cavanaugh called it, "proof of concept."

Two years later, Erner declined to run for re-election. What went wrong? What went right? When I speculated over the phone – burnout, frustration with county legislative procedures, a poor fit for the job – he answered, "All of the above." It's clear he threw himself into the work (on a $14,000 annual salary), representing his advocacy groups, engaging with others from around the county, and getting to know county workers as best as he could, but I suspect he may be someone so driven by his causes he couldn't really say "no" to a job that could eat you alive. He recruited Greg McCollough to run in his stead, a fellow who now holds the seat with heartfelt conviction.

In the larger story of MHVDSA, however, Phil Erner's upset victory is just the warm-up. Next week, we'll turn to the rise of Sarahana Shrestha.

(My thanks to Peter Frase, Pete Cavanaugh, Leanna Zilles, Niklas Moran, and Phil Erner for interviews that informed this history. Any mistakes are mine.)