By the League National Electoral Committee
Basic human needs such as healthcare, housing, education and food sovereignty are frequently dangled on a string to working-class Americans at election time. They are often promised and seemingly within reach during election cycles, only to be pulled back, leaving us pawing and clawing the air for our necessities. Now Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) party is dangling $5,000 for you if you vote for candidates who will take away everything you need to survive.
Will America succumb to this chicanery again, as our country and our planet descend into chaos? Or will this be the year when pent-up frustration transforms itself into united action? Are we ready to pounce? In this year’s election, our lives depend on it.
Working class voters in 2026 have no choice but both to fight MAGA and demand that government meet our basic needs. As Angie Nixon said, “We protect democracy because people cannot fight for a better life if their voices are being silenced.” Swing states are especially strategic, where basic needs candidates are directly facing off against MAGA, especially in the South and Rust Belt. When basic needs candidates begin defeating fascism more effectively than corporate Democrats, they break open the Democratic Party and open the door to political revolution.
In Florida, Angie Nixon has steadfastly defended voters for years by placing her body in peril. When Governor Ron DeSantis called for an illegal gerrymander, Ms. Nixon staged a sit-in in his office. Right now, her campaign for the U.S. Senate is in a dead heat against Ashley Moody — in January a grand jury reported that while serving as Florida’s attorney general in 2024 Moody’s staff approved a payment of $10 million which should have helped low-income Medicare families but instead “was misused for political purposes” and funneled to the Republican Party.
Elsewhere, in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is fighting for Medicare for All. As a former public health director, Mr. El-Sayed knows that Medicare should be expanded to cover everyone “from cradle to grave,” with no premiums, copays, or deductibles. He is currently narrowly leading in his campaign.
These election outcomes depend on us. The status quo is poverty, disease, war, unregulated artificial intelligence (A.I.) and environmental disaster. When we support these basic needs candidates, we support our neighbors, children in the community, older folks, our families and ourselves.
VICTORY
The key to winning is to increase turnout and build cross-generational unity. This means continuing and building on the 2025-26 nonviolent uprisings of Los Angeles, Chicago and Minnesota. Organizations like Ice Watch and Indivisible are actively organizing to protect polling places from ICE and the military. They inspire youth because they link direct action and voting. We cannot defeat fascism with votes alone. Victory demands comprehensive, on-the-ground election protection not only before and during the election, but afterward during the counting of the ballots and the seating of the winners. At the same time, the higher the voter turnout and the larger the victory, the harder it will be for MAGA to steal it.
Younger voters distrust both major parties, but they are much more likely to support basic needs candidates (46% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 now hold either a “favorable” or a “very favorable” view of democratic socialism according to a CNBC poll). Their turnout is essential.
“Study your local candidates,” said California Working Families Party member Marilyn Sobel. “Even more conservative areas often have candidates advocating for funding for the basic needs of their communities, while running for the school board, city council or mayor. These races are often decided by a few votes and younger voters can see their influence more directly. Young voters are worried about inflation and job prospects, but they also want ICE and Flock out of their communities.”
UNITY
The economic revolution, especially the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (A.I.), is making working-class unity possible in a way that has never happened before in America. According to a recent Politico poll, over one third of people who identify as working class are unemployed. Through a shared concern for better jobs, basic needs and the environment, we can build working-class unity across party lines. Sixty-five percent of voters say the system is rigged to favor the wealthy, up from 56 percent in Trump’s first term. They are reading their own lives: no stable job, housing, safety, planet or future.
Many workers are disillusioned with both parties. They are sickened by Trump’s violent crackdown on hardworking immigrants who have no criminal records and have done nothing wrong. At the same time, people in both major parties are rising up against data centers and the droughts and high electric bills they bring. They are increasingly open to the idea that the entire corporate class is not their friend. They begin to understand that the lie about “undocumented voting” is a scam to take away their own right to vote. This is an opportunity to elevate and vote for independent candidates who fight for what we need regardless of party label.
DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM
Elections are an arena where working-class voters can both defeat MAGA and proactively campaign for programs that meet their basic needs. While some people claim the “socialist” label is a barrier to victory, it has actually been an opportunity to demonstrate that socialism at heart simply means securing human needs and a sustainable future. Red baiting worked in the 1950s because socialism seemed to be abstract and foreign. It collapses once people understand what socialism really means – cooperative ownership of our economic essentials, like land, energy, water, healthcare and technology – and protecting society and the Earth, rather than plundering them for profit.
The fight is not about labels but about the working class’s power to press its demands against corporate dictatorship. The billionaire class promotes anti-immigrant, anti-Black and anti-socialist hatred to divide and confuse us, but our lived experience is teaching us that we have a common cause.
The message is clear. Public ownership of artificial intelligence. Taxing tech fortunes to fund jobs. Controlling the data centers. Guaranteed housing, food, healthcare and education. Public wealth for the public good. That is the argument that is raging in America today and we can win it.
Published on October 9, 2026.
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