It would be easy to dismiss Kshama Sawant as a far-left radical with pie-in-the-sky dreams, if not for the fact that she was elected three consecutive times to Seattle’s City Council, narrowly survived a recall campaign, and won victories while in office, such as establishing a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2014 and fighting for a historic tax on large corporations such as Amazon. Now Sawant—who was born in India, immigrated to the United States in 1996, and describes herself as a Marxist and a revolutionary socialist—has tossed her hat in the ring to run for the U.S. Congress seat currently held by fourteen-term incumbent Adam Smith in Washington State’s ninth Congressional district.
Kshama Sawant spoke with The Progressive virtually from her home in Seattle on October 28. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Can you talk a bit about your time serving on the Seattle City Council?
Kshama Sawant: I was first elected to the city council in 2013. I was reelected in 2015, and ran for reelection in 2019, and won that. Then, in 2021 there was an attempt by the Trump-oriented rightwing, the Democratic Party, and big business, to recall me—which failed. I left the city council undefeated in December 2023. I was the sole socialist on the council; the other eight members were all affiliated with the Democratic Party, although the council seats are officially nonpartisan.
During those ten years, we were able to win what became the nation’s highest minimum wage at the time by launching the “15 Now” campaign and winning, in June 2014, the first $15-per-hour minimum wage in a major city. As a part of that battle, we won increases for inflation, so today, the minimum wage is $20.76, the nation’s highest. In January, 2026, it will go up to $21.35.
During my time in office we also won the “Amazon Tax,” to tax the wealthiest corporations in Seattle in order to raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually to fund publicly owned, affordable social housing. We also won unprecedented renters’ rights victories, like a $10 cap on late rent fees; six months’ notice for all rent increases; a moratorium on evictions in winter months [for those at or below the area’s median income], and for school children and their families during the school year; and more.
I’m a revolutionary socialist, I’ve always run as an independent. We’ve shown that an independent fighting strategy absolutely works. We did not get marginalized, I did not sell out; instead, we forced the Democrats to carry out a working-class agenda.
Q: Now you’re running for Congress in Washington’s ninth district, against incumbent Democrat Adam Smith. On news broadcasts, he comes across as, and is treated like, one of the more liberal Democrats in Congress. Why are you challenging him?
Sawant: Adam Smith voted to send tens of billions of dollars for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. He voted repeatedly to ban any U.S. funding for United Nations food assistance in Gaza. He did that while there was mass starvation in Gaza. He voted for the Iraq War in 2002. He voted to create ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] by voting for George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Act, and for Bush’s PATRIOT Act, which unleashed a new wave of mass surveillance and attacks on peaceful protest.
In 1997, Smith voted for Bill Clinton’s so-called Balanced Budget Act, which savagely cut Medicare and Medicaid by about $120 billion. In 1999, Smith voted for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which deregulated banking and helped create the 2008 recession—he then voted to bail out Wall Street, instead of millions of ravaged working families. In 2022, Smith voted to break the railroad workers’ strike. For nearly thirty years, Adam Smith has been a dogged, unshakeable, loyal advocate for big business and the war-mongering interests of U.S. imperialism. In my view, Smith has blood on his hands—he should be on trial for war crimes, and thrown out of office.
Q: And he has the same name as the father of laissez-faire capitalism.
Sawant: [Laughs.] That’s true. I’m a Marxist economist; it’s almost poetic that a revolutionary socialist is running against him. To your point that Adam Smith is treated as this really liberal guy—it really exposes the true nature of the Democratic Party. Smith is supposedly a member of the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus. It calls into question what the word “progressive” means. Even a genocidal, war-mongering, billionaire-backed Democrat like Smith can be considered a member.
Most working class people are absolutely infuriated at both parties, but what’s missing is a leftwing alternative. A recent poll showed 63 percent of Americans want a new party. This election is especially crucial, because it’s the breakthrough we need to actually build a new party for the working class.
Q: What’s your campaign platform?
Sawant: An end to the genocide; to all U.S. military funding for the Israeli government; to the brutal occupation of Palestinian land by the apartheid Israeli state. There’s a ceasefire, but Israel is still attacking Gaza and has a shameful track record of breaking ceasefires.
[We should] stop all deportations, shut down the detention centers and ICE. We’re fighting for free healthcare for all—funded by taxing the rich; for a $25 an hour national minimum wage; for national rent control; and for a massive expansion of publicly-owned social housing.
Q: What do you think of the growing number of candidates and some office holders calling themselves socialists?
Sawant: I strongly agree with Zohran Mamdani’s campaign’s demands, including freezing rents in rent-stabilized apartments, making public transit free, and the $30-an-hour minimum wage in New York City—[this last one,], unfortunately, Mamdani hasn’t been talking about that much. I’ve also publicly pledged that if there’s a fight following Mamdani’s election for the $30 minimum wage, I will personally go to New York and help. If working class people can win those victories, they’ll propel other victories for working class people nationally, as well.
But I do think the strategy to win any of these victories will not come from making alliances with the Democratic Party, from trying to appease big business. That’s what I disagree with about Mamdani’s approach.
Q: In 2024, Donald Trump received seventy-seven million votes, while Kamala Harris received seventy-five million votes—but nearly ninety million people who were eligible to vote didn’t cast their ballot for either candidate.
Sawant: That’s such an important part of the story. Nearly nineteen million people who were polled, who had voted for Biden in 2020, refused to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. These Democratic Party voters didn’t vote for anyone. Why? Because they were angry about the genocide in Gaza and the cost-of-living crisis. Clearly there is huge anger among the working class because of the betrayals of both parties. If you want to defeat Trumpism, you have to defeat the Democratic Party also.
Q: Do you think socialism will be brought about by the ballot or the bullet?
Sawant: Framing the question that way is extremely misleading. What’s actually needed is a political rebellion. Obviously, we need a revolution, like the Russian Revolution, which was the most important progressive event in modern global history. Because the capitalists aren’t going to freely hand over the wealth they expropriated from the working class, we’ll need to have a fight.
History shows that the arsenal to kill people is primarily in the hands of the capitalist class. As far as the ballot part of your question is concerned, I think it’s a false dichotomy to say, “I believe in movements; I don’t believe in electoralism,” or vice versa. Marxist revolutionary leadership is absolutely crucial, as is challenging the Republicans and Democrats and building our own party, winning elections—all the while understanding that all aspects of our work have to be directed towards revolutionary movements. Electing a revolutionary socialist to Congress will be nothing short of a political earthquake.