Member Statements on EER01: Endorsement of Aparna Raj for DC Ward 1 Councilmember

Member Statements
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IN FAVOR by Giancarlo V

I write today to support the endorsement resolution for Aparna Raj. There are many people who know Aparna better than I, but it seems like she is exactly the type of candidate we should be moving heaven and earth for: somebody who has organised as a rank-and-file chapter member, ascended to leadership, and still actively participates in chapter life. It is the potential for her to bring her background as an organiser that excites me even more than her specific policy stances; the idea that we could have an elected official in this city who would approach her position as an organiser and encourage people’s increased organization into leftist formations is a dream come true.

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IN FAVOR by Alexander A

As a native son of Columbia Heights, where I spent the first fourteen years of my formal childhood years and adolescence, I urge the body to endorse Aparna Raj for DC City Council Seat for Ward 1. Although I am now a proud resident of Prince George’s County, I consider Columbia Heights my home. It is the place where I first learned how to ride a bike. It is the place where I was taught and educated, at DC Bilingual Public Charter School and then E.L Haynes Public Charter School. It is the place where my parents grew up and were classmates (alums of HD Cooke, Lincoln Middle School, Bell Multicultural High School, class of 2000). All before the Giant was built, all before the DC USA mall was built, and (the greatest sin of them all, before the permanent closure of Heller’s Bakery). This is the place I call home, and for that reason, am deeply invested in this city council race.

On the topic of home, Aparna Raj’s political home is the DSA. Through and through. Through her work with Stomp Out Slumlords, labor organizing for the fight for I-82, electoral campaigns for Janeese Lewis-George and Zachary Parker, serving on chapter steering, and the articulation and the poise in which she speaks, Aparna has done the work and has shown herself to be more than capable in fighting back against the agents of capital and reactionary forces. Aparna is the person who will carry the DSA banner proudly on the DC Council and expand class consciousness amongst the working class of this city. Aparna is the person who will work in concert with the chapter to pass initiatives and legislation that will truly raise up the material conditions for DC residents, thus setting the stage and foundation for a serious potent socialist movement in the District, right in the very heart of capital, right inside the imperial core, right inside the belly of the beast. It is for these reasons that I urge and reaffirm the body to vote in favor of endorsing Aparna Raj for DC Ward 1 Councilmember.

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IN FAVOR by Brandon W

I am writing in favor of endorsing Aparna Raj for Ward 1. Aparna is a cadre candidate who has already inspired hundreds of my neighbors in the Ward to chip in and knock doors, resulting in the campaign setting records & putting the establishment on notice. Aparna’s work across tenant organizing, union organizing, electoral work, and across the chapter will prove incredibly powerful on DC Council, and our chapter should stand fully behind her in her race to represent Ward 1.

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IN FAVOR by Emily N

Comrades,I’m writing to urge you to vote YES on endorsing Aparna Raj for Ward 1 Councilmember.

This campaign represents nearly a decade of hard work and organizing by people across our chapter. Multiple generations of the new left have built the foundation that brought us to this moment – one where, in the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s victory, we have the opportunity to elect a true cadre candidate of our own. From organizing rent strikes across DC, to leading our electoral program, to standing on picket lines and supporting countless workers fighting for dignity, Aparna embodies what our movement has grown into as we enter a new stage of political maturity.

Anyone who has worked with Aparna knows she is a fierce advocate and an even fiercer organizer. As a Councilmember, I have full confidence she will bring that same precision, passion, and unshakeable commitment to the Wilson Building on behalf of working people in the District.

This race is within reach, but it will be a fight – which is exactly why we need the full weight of DSA’s electoral program behind her. It’s an open seat, and the field is already crowded more than six months out. From a conservative Bowser loyalist to moderate progressives, this race is stacked – and make no mistake Aparna, as an outsider candidate, is fighting an uphill battle. This is not a guaranteed win for our chapter and movement, and we will need every person we can get to win this race.

I’m one of many DSA organizers and former chapter leaders who has been deeply involved in building this campaign – and I’m excited to continue that work with all of you.

Vote YES to endorse Aparna. Let’s meet this moment together and continue growing our movement.

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IN FAVOR by David P

Aparna is the real deal and Ward 1 is ideal territory for a DSA cadre to run.

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IN FAVOR by Carl R

Comrades, I urge you to vote FOR the endorsement of our former chair Aparna Raj.

I served three terms on our chapter’s steering committee with Aparna, including her year as chair. I have seen her personally knock thousands of doors. I have worked with her late into the night to organize things, whether it’s Initiative 82 work, a chapter convention, or a snap protest. She is one of the best of us, someone I’m proud is running for office, and someone I’m proud to call a dear friend. Most importantly, she’s one of the best organizers I’ve ever met.

The chapter’s electoral work - starting in 2017 with DSA’s first win after Bernie’s 2016 campaign - has been working towards this moment for years. We had the first step in November, electing cadre member Frankie Santos Fritz to office in Greenbelt. Aparna’s (and Imara’s) race is the next step in our proof of concept: that our leaders, the people who choose to make Metro DC DSA their organizing home, are more than good enough to be everyone’s leaders. That we can develop and sharpen leaders in our organization and have them run for office and win.

Aparna’s race isn’t going to be easy. There are multiple candidates running in multiple lanes to be DC’s Ward 1 councilmember. But Aparna’s campaign plan, the structure she has already set up, and the chapter’s hard work are going to win this race. I firmly believe that what Aparna has planned for this campaign can win the race, bring in hundreds of new members to the chapter, set a huge record for our total doors knocked in a ward race, and show the entire region that our chapter and Aparna are forces to be reckoned with.

You don’t have to take my word for it, either. The campaign set incredibly impressive records with first day donations, qualifying for matching funds much faster than any previous campaign, and she has already launched multiple well attended canvasses. She knows how to do this because she’s done this work before, with us, as a leader in our electoral campaigns in 2022 and 2024.

I am incredibly proud to vote for Aparna’s endorsement from the chapter. I highly encourage you to vote YES as well.

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IN FAVOR by Dieter LM

I’ve had the privilege of working with Aparna Raj for two years on our Steering Committee, and we also worked closely together during the Zachary Parker campaign. In every space we shared, Aparna brought steadiness, clarity, and an incredible commitment to collective work. She is thoughtful, reliable, and someone who consistently shows up for her comrades with real integrity. I’m grateful to have worked alongside her.

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IN FAVOR by Matt S

Among many other crucial causes that I know our comrade Aparna would fight for, I am confident that she can be the utility justice champion that we need on council right now. As our investor owned utilities send our bills skyrocketing, pushing tens of thousands of our neighbors into utility debt, and their supposed regulator, the PSC, rubber stamps anything they ask for, it is a critical moment to get a socialist cadre candidate on council to fight back. We need public power champion on council–a CM who will use their legislative power to fight for ratepayer protections as we organize ratepayers from the ground up, and ultimately, to push for full municipalization. I am confident that comrade Aparna can be that councilmember.

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IN FAVOR by Kurtis H

I have had the pleasure of organizing alongside Aparna since 2021. On our chapter’s Steering Committee, on picket lines, and at marches and rallies, I have seen Aparna dedication to our shared cause of liberation and the expansion of democracy to all areas of our lives. If elected, she will serve as my councilmember on council. I have had the opportunity to knock thousands of doors across this region, but I have never had the opportunity to knock doors for someone who will represent me directly. As our chapter moves towards a focus on cadre candidates, I can think of few members of our chapter better suited and more exciting than Aparna, and I strongly urge you to vote YES on endorsing her.

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IN FAVOR by Rob W

Aparna Raj has been on the front line of the class struggle. She played a crucial role as an organizer in the rent strike at Marbury Plaza that forced the old landlord into bankruptcy and pushed the DC attorney general to bring a lawsuit that promises to return more than $40 million to tenants who suffered abuse and neglect for decades. She has been a leader in the tenant movement through brutal defeats and exhilarating victories. Aparna has been in the streets with us, has marched to the mayor’s house with us, has camped out in front of the White House, and stormed the chambers of the council with crowds of tenants demanding dignity and respect. She has demonstrated her commitment to building a working class socialist movement with sweat and tears. There is no better example of a “cadre candidate.” There has not been a councilmember like her in decades; arguably there never has been one. And she is running an extremely impressive campaign and has an excellent chance to win her race. This is a no-brainer, let’s go do this.

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IN FAVOR by Doug T

I’m very, very excited to vote YES to endorse our first cadre DSA member running for DC council! I got to know Aparna very well with her work in SOS and she’s such a dedicated and hard working comrade. Having her and Janesse in office would be so cool and be a major advancement in our chapter’s political growth.

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IN FAVOR by Bakari W

Hello all, I’m Bakari. I’ve been a member of the Steering Committee since 2023 and chair of the Political Engagement Committee, which leads our electoral work, since 2024. To me, Aparna’s campaign exemplifies what DSA exists to do. She is one of us to her core. Her start as an organizer was in our Stomp Out Slumlords working group, helping tenants form unions and directly engaging in the fight between workers and owners. Aparna is one of the most effective organizers this chapter has ever had, and she developed those skills alongside many of us as she became a leader in the chapter across a variety of organizing efforts, serving on Steering and the PEC with me and serving as Chair of MDC DSA in 2023. I got to know her through electoral work. She was a leader in the chapter’s canvassing operation for Zachary Parker in 2022, which was my first chapter activity. And she was the driving force directing our Initiative 82 tipped minimum wage campaign in 2022, my first time leading canvasses. We also worked together to coordinate the chapter’s 20k-door effort to re-elect Janeese Lewis George in 2024.

Aside from canvassing, she invited me to come to a couple Stomp Out Slumlords events in 2022. These were my first non-electoral chapter activities, but they were also when I started seeing DSA as not just a series of isolated campaigns but a cohesive whole advancing a multifaceted strategy for organizing the working class. I saw that the kinds of fights tenant unions can win are materially impacted by organizing terrain determined by legislation. And the stronger the tenant movement is, the more it can collaborate with our electoral program to elect legislators that improve the organizing terrain and further strengthen the tenant movement; a cycle that ends with workers in control. This is true of each part of our organizing, they all strengthen one another. We know Aparna is prepared to win this seat and use it to structurally empower the working class because she has been on every side of this fight as a DSA member: electorally, legislatively, and in terms of directly organizing workers.

Let’s put the former Chair of Metro DC DSA on the DC Council. Vote YES to endorse Aparna Raj for Ward 1.

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IN FAVOR by Guido V

Comrades, I urge you to vote in favor of endorsing Aparna Raj for DC Ward 1 councilmember.

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IN FAVOR by Emma D

I am writing to express my strong support for endorsing Aparna Raj for DC Ward 1 Councilmember. As a cadre candidate, Aparna is committed to DSA and our values. Working on her campaign and having a cadre candidate like her in office is an incredible opportunity for our chapter’s growth and power here in DC. Having a socialist and an experienced organizer in office is also so important to advance the working class’s interests in DC and to fight Trump’s fascist regime. I’m incredibly excited to support and volunteer for Aparna’s campaign.

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IN FAVOR by Alex Y

Setting aside the candidate, the election cycle, opponents, etc. Ward 1 is the single election district within our chapter with the most concentrated DSA membership. It is a no brainer for us to endorse in this race, and while a win is not a guarantee, we will be a force to be contended with.

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IN FAVOR by James L

I have known Aparna and her strong commitment to DC, Ward 1, and socialism since I met her in 2020. I just moved to Washington DC and was happy to find another Philly person in MDC. I highly recommend MDC DSA endorsing Aparna for Ward 1 Council because of her commitment to tenant and housing rights. She has shown her dedication to Metro DC in her many terms of local leadership and shepherding of the local to become the third largest chapter in DSA. I am a Ward 1 resident and I know that Aparna will apply her organizing experience to improve Ward 1, and help create a socialist block on Council which will forward our organization’s mission of collective ownership, in housing and working conditions, while also championing the Ward’s poor and immigrant working class. Our District has been led by collaborators who conspire with the Trump administration and throw our service workers, bus & trolley drivers, our migrant neighbors, and our youth to the wolves of authoritarian fascism and neoliberal rent seekers daily. Our District is under-represented, denied democracy as is our right, and is under the thumb and whims of an adversarial Congress and administration who use our city as a testing ground for their larger project of oppression. Aparna will stand up to these bullies and thieves of the working class. Aparna is a strong ally to the Palestinian people, to BIPOC and queer neighbors, to the unhoused and wage worker, to the public servant and union member. I am proud to support Aparna and I urge you to vote for her endorsement. We have nothing to lose but our chains, and Aparna will help clean the streets, raise the wage, build public transit and housing, and defend DC against the AI tech landlords who want us all to be in debt and wage slavery.

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IN FAVOR by Tim S

It’s rare that we get a request for endorsement from a candidate who fits into both our strategy and our political vision precisely, but in Aparna’s case, that’s exactly what has happened. Aparna is a cadre member of our chapter, and has a long record of fighting for our causes, because she is one of us: she’s been a chapter chair, an electoral coordinator for multiple campaigns, a tenant and labor organizer, as well as a mentor to many comrades who have gone on to do similar things, including me. She’s running a very strong campaign for a seat that is both strategic and winnable, but her victory is far from a given, so there’s an important role for the ‘DSA Difference’ in ensuring that she reaches office. I strongly urge you to join me in voting for her endorsement.

Being a cadre candidate is important because it means that Aparna will hold our line with limited need for intervention, since it’s her line too, and that she comes in with a clear understanding of how DSA works. Aparna’s platform and record of organizing and activism clearly shows alignment with our chapter’s program and priorities, giving us every reason to expect that it will continue in office, since it’s what she’s running on. Less obviously, understanding DSA is important, because it means that she understands our internal democracy, how our leadership bodies work, what kind of capacity we have, etc., which will reduce friction in the relationship relative to non-cadre candidates.

It’s possible to have a cadre candidate, with good values and a good record, run a campaign that doesn’t make sense to endorse because of its lack of viability, but that is not at all the case here. Aparna has raised the most money of anyone in her race, and has dozens of volunteers consistently working on all aspects of her campaign. She’s got far bigger reach on social media, and far more developed platform planks, than her opponents, and has already started serious canvassing efforts, knocking thousands of doors already, and likely thousands more by the end of the year. This is a very strong campaign, stronger than any of the winning campaigns I’ve worked on at this stage in the race.

That being said, the campaign needs the DSA to make sure it can win, because its strategy rests on knocking the universe of Ward 1 voters multiple times: having good infrastructure in place already by no means implies that it won’t need DSA volunteers to succeed. Aparna’s facing 4-5 opponents, possibly with ranked choice voting, and two of these opponents – Rashida Brown and Jackie Reyes – are longtime insiders who have significant bases of support. Notably, Rashida Brown’s strength comes largely from outgoing CM Brianne Nadeau’s endorsement, which happened entirely because of Aparna’s consistent advocacy for Palestinian liberation. The win number is manageable, around 8000-9000, but the way we’ve gotten there in the past has been with huge numbers of volunteer hours spent on the doors. That’s very doable here, especially since we have hundreds of members in Ward 1 who can be activated to knock their own neighborhoods, but it does hinge on our endorsement and support. We absolutely can elect our first cadre candidate to the DC Council in this race, but we’ll need to endorse and then work really hard to make that a reality – join me in voting yes to do just that!

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IN FAVOR by Cindy D

Endorsing Aparna Raj is a wonderful opportunity to support someone who has been an active local chapter member running for local office. As a DC resident who lives in another ward, I see electing Aparna is a critical step toward a more progressive City Council.

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IN FAVOR by Caleb W

In addition to the many points made in favor of Aparna’s endorsement at convention, all of which I totally agree with, I have two additional considerations that make me quite confident in voting yes:

(1) I have already had success in talking to a friend (not a chapter member) about the campaign, inviting her to a house party, and after one evening hearing from Aparna and chatting with volunteers this friend is fully on board. Other acquaintances of mine and my wife’s have already been converted to supporters, volunteers, and donors by hearing about what Aparna stands for. Aparna is a strong candidate who can connect with voters and wage a serious campaign.

(2) In multiple recent campaigns, reactionaries have tried to get neoliberal and pro-incarceration candidates into the Ward 1 seat by activating prejudice against immigrants, homeless people, mental illness, and drug problems. Although the seat has been held by the general “solid progressive” current that many associate with Ward 1, resisting this backlash on the long term requires us to push further and make it a real DSA stronghold.

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IN FAVOR by Eduarda S

Aparna Raj is a strong, committed, and serious DSA cadre candidate. She merits our endorsement and our support as a chapter for being the best and only democratic socialist candidate for Ward 1 DC Council. She is someone who was brought up in our political organization and is accountable to our shared project. Aparna served on our steering committee for 3 years, serving once as chair of our chapter, roles that show her dedication to the success of Metro DC DSA. Now, as a candidate for DC Council she is championing policies of affordability and class struggle that will reshape the makeup of our city. Aparna has already raised tens of thousands of dollars in this race while only accepting small dollar donations from everyday working people. She has already mobilized hundreds of volunteers to her base more than six months out from the election, proving her ideas are popular and that her campaign is a force to be reckoned with. I cannot wait to really hit the doors canvassing for this campaign and I cannot wait to see my DSA comrades on the doors with me. Together, we can get our first true cadre candidate elected to the DC council and open the door for more democratic socialist politics to govern our city! Endorse Aparna today, come canvass with us tomorrow!