Working Class Candidates on the Ballot in Michigan, Illinois and California

Sep 30, 2024

Michigan

The Working Class Party of Michigan has nominated its candidates for the 2024 election. In 2016, when the party was formed, there were only three candidates. Today, there are 15.

Two candidates are on the ballot in every district in the state: MARY ANN HERING, running for State Board of Education, and SUZANNE ROEHRIG, for Wayne State University Board of Governors.

Seven candidates are running for Congress in districts where more than half the state’s population lives: LIZ HAKOLA in the 1^st District; LOU PALUS, 3^rd District; KATHY GOODWIN, 8^th District; JIM WALKOWICZ, 9^th District; ANDREA L. KIRBY, 10^th District; GARY WALKOWICZ, 12^th District; and SIMONE R. COLEMAN, 13^th District.

Six other people are running for State Representative positions: MARK DaSACCO, District 2; LARRY DARNELL BETTS, District 3; LINDA RAYBURN, District 7; LOGAN AUSHERMAN, District 8; HASHIM MALIK BAKARI, District 13; and LINDA GREEN-HARRIS, District 16.

Illinois

The Working Class Party of Illinois collected signatures to put ED HERSHEY on the ballot in Illinois. He is running in Illinois’s 4^th Congressional District. This is the second time Ed has run as the WCP candidate for Congress in Illinois.

California

In California, where election law is so reactionary and restrictive that it is almost impossible for a new party to get on the ballot, people who want to see the working class build its own party have done the work to put JUAN REY on the ballot in California as an independent candidate, a worker running for Congress in California’s 37^th District. Juan ran in the March multi-party primary and came in second, giving him a spot on the November election ballot.

Maryland

Candidates for the Working Class Party have been on the ballot before, but did not gain the required number of votes to stay on the ballot. Supporters are currently collecting signatures to get back on the ballot. They are close to the 10,000 signatures required, but the volunteers aim to go over that to ensure that they will be accepted.

All of these candidates come from the working class; they want to see their class build its own party.

These candidates know that we won’t change a society so terribly destructive as this one through an election. For that, a social fight spanning large parts of the working class is necessary. But this election can show just how many people are fed up with the situation capitalism has created, it can show how many want to see their own class organize its own party.