SOCIALIST STATE SLATE

We Honed New York's New Left

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Democratic Socialist candidates supported across New York City

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Messaging workshops honing core campaign commmunications

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A wins in areas thought "unwinnable" for socialists

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Historic win for pro-Palestine politics

The Story

The 2026 New York primaries arrived in an altered political landscape. With Zohran Mamdani's victory, long-held assumptions about where Democratic Socialists could compete had to be reevaluated, revealing surprising pockets of support and mobilizing new groups of voters. Meanwhile, retirements and surprise open seats triggered a wave of late-start campaigns with compressed timelines and little room for strategic drift.

The Challenge

The biggest unanswered question wasn't whether NYC districts would support left candidates. It was whether or not newly energized voters would show up for lower-profile races that many New Yorkers barely know exist.

Even though candidates often possess the experience, values, and instincts that make them compelling, what a campaign often lacks is a coherent framework that condenses all of that into a message capable of surviving the realities of an election. For voters to turn out, we knew campaign clarity would be critical — and in compressed campaigns with limited resources, even more so. Every unresolved contradiction becomes a Pandora’s box of questions:

Who are we actually talking to?
What do we want voters to remember?
What's our emotional engine?
How do we respond when we're attacked?
Which tradeoffs are we willing to make?

Without identifying these core components, campaigns end up relitigating their identity every week instead of executing.

Our Approach

We believe a good candidate and campaign already have raw materials needed to win. Our role is to simply surface them, pressure-test them, and strategically assemble them into their strongest possible positioning.

With an eye on district insights, we break campaigns down to their core parts, identify tensions before they become liabilities, force difficult decisions early, and help teams establish a durable communications architecture that can guide everything from speeches to field scripts to rapid response. 

Our goal isn't a better slogan. It's a political identity strong enough to live beyond campaign literature — to show up in video content, visual culture, merchandise, organizing actions, social feeds, volunteer conversations, and the real, everyday places where people actually encounter politics.

“When people you've never met of in your life are saying your campaign message back to you unprompted, that's when you win."

THE WINS

ABER KAWAS FOR STATE SENATE

Aber Kawas entered the race as a respected Palestinian-American community organizer with deep roots in labor organizing, anti-ICE advocacy, and the movement for Palestinian liberation.

After initially planning an Assembly campaign, the pivot to State Senate meant scaling both geography and ambition. Kawas’s campaign required a communications strategy that connected diverse communities across Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Ridgewood, Maspeth, Long Island City, Elmhurst, Glendale, and Jackson Heights. Working closely with the campaign from its earliest stages, we sharpened its core message to reflect both the district's diverse identity and Kawas’s political philosophy, and merge local concerns with international solidarity. The unifying emotional frame: "In the world's borough, we fight for the world."

Greenpill’s work extended beyond strategy to execution, producing organic social video content and transforming endorsement footage from Mayor Zohran Mamdani into a series of digital and television advertisements designed for broad distribution.

ILLAPA SAIRITUPAC FOR AD65

After one of our principals advised a previous campaign for housing organizer, anti-ICE activist, and DSA ecosocialist leader Illapa Sairitupac, Greenpill helped evolve the messaging for a dramatically changed electoral landscape. We worked to preserve the campaign's authentic political heart, while adapting its communications to a new strategic reality.

DAVID ORKIN FOR AD38

The race between immigrant workers’ rights attorney, union organizer, and democratic socialist David Orkin and incumbent Jennifer Rajkumar may have been the cycle's most volatile. Our messaging workshop and development process helped keep communications grounded in people and purpose through a wild campaign featuring court challenges over Rajkumar’s forged petition signatures, huge outside spending, and increasigly bizarre tactics befitting Eric Adams' last ally in Albany. Together, we worked to clarify campaign identity and communications priorities for the rapidly shifting district environment.

FROM PIPEDREAM TO REALITY

Ten years ago, a dozen plus socialist in office seemed impossible. From Asthma Alley to the Hudson Valley, we helped change that. And even a year ago, socialists representing the Lower East Side and Eastern QUeens seemed impossible too.

But when unassailable left wing principles, stragetic organizing muscle, and mass-oriented media combine, what's possible suddenly looks a whole lot different than the conventional wisdom says.

So let us know: what are they saying is impossible now?