In the Midwest, the PSL is on the ballot in three states: Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
In order to achieve ballot access in those states, PSL members and friends in Chicago traveled to all three states in the months of June, July and August.
In Wisconsin and Minnesota combined, over 5,500 signatures were collected. In Iowa, the PSL held an outdoor, one-day convention at which we collected 500 signatures from attendees who came from over 41 counties.
Despite heat wave conditions throughout the summer months, volunteers spent hours on the streets of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Iowa City, Des Moines, Milwaukee and Kenosha to complete the Midwest ballot access drive.
PSL members donated over 850 hours of their time to this Midwest ballot access drive, including over 360 hours of signature-collection and 450 hours of driving time. These figures—amounting to over 20 full 40-hour workweeks—are all the more impressive considering that the vast majority of PSL members in the Midwest have jobs and/or are attending school.
Over the 19 days we spent petitioning in the Midwest, the most important thing we found out in people’s responses to the PSL election campaign: Despite the fear-mongering propaganda war against socialism and the distortions of socialism in the media, there are many poor and working people who are eager to engage in street-corner discussions about socialism as an answer to the injustices of capitalism.
