Andrea Kirby and Gary Walkowicz, candidates for Working Class Party in Michigan, spoke at a meeting of supporters about the history of WCP and the more than a decade of work that's gone into building it.
A video recording of their speech can be found below. An article written to reproduce the speech for the Spark newspaper follows.
We started petitioning to get Working Class Party on the ballot in 2016. But there is a much needed back story that must be told to truly understand the journey that brings us to this day. In 2014, five independent candidates in Michigan ran together on the same slate asking people’s vote to show they agree with the idea that workers had to be organized independently. So, before there was even a Working Class Party on the ballot, five independent candidates went out on a limb with the support of a few dozen people, including some in this room, and over 17,000 voters agreed.
That is where the Working Class Party journey began. So, in 2016, conditions were right to introduce Working Class Party to the world. We had to do a LOT more than just telling the state we are a party. We had to petition, which started in January 2016. Just a reminder, for those who may not be familiar, but January in Michigan is filled with cold, snow, ice—and did I mention cold? We had temperatures in the single digits and lows in the negative teens. That didn’t stop us. We combed the state to gather the required number of signatures to get our party on the ballot. We were at museums, colleges and universities, festivals, parades, workplaces, grocery stores and other places with public access. We went door-to-door and spoke with family members, co-workers and neighbors. We did the work that had to be done for what we believed—workers need their own political party.
We were faced with the Trump/Hillary Presidential race. The working class was fed up with their choices, knowing that neither party, the Democrats or Republicans, were offering them good options. So, we armed ourselves with the basic message: We need to organize ourselves as a class in order to form the mass party we need. And, it will take more than elections to change our situation. We had a lot more to say, but those were the key subjects in every conversation. Not to mention we had no candidates at this point, so we technically weren’t a party.
January to mid-July, over 50,000 signatures were collected and turned in, which probably came from over 100,000 conversations. Not everyone we talked to signed the petition, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t agree. Those conversations are more valuable than any text messages or social media posts. Then we had to wait. Wait a month to see how many of the signatures were actually valid and to find out if we were going to be on the ballot.
Well, we did get enough signatures and we were on the ballot for the first time with three candidates, one statewide position for State Board of Education and two for Congress. The campaign had very, and I mean very, little money, but election night came, polls closed and we quickly realized that we were going to have the required 16,491 statewide votes we needed to stay on the ballot for the next election cycle.
In the end, over 224,000 people voted for our statewide candidate for State Board of Education. This vote count was more than for any of the candidates of the other four minor parties on the ballot since 2000 or the prior 16 years. Let’s look at that for a moment, because to me it was quite impressive. This was the first time Working Class Party was on the ballot with only three candidates and they received more votes than parties such as the Libertarians and Green Party, who have been on the ballot for decades before. The voters showed that they want something different; they agree with the idea of having their own party.
If we look back, it has now been 10 years. Working Class Party has been on the ballot six times, so it may seem familiar to see the name on the ballot. But in 2016, while campaigning, we didn’t know if we were going to get enough votes to stay on the ballot or if we were going to have to go through the whole petition process again. But we did the work because we believe that it is necessary for the working class to build a mass party and be the force necessary to change the conditions for the working class.
In 2018, in just two years, Working Class Party had grown to 11 candidates. We went from 3 to 11 candidates. That was an obvious sign that the work we had done in 2016 had a far reach. In 2018, there was no Presidential race and people become a little less interested in discussing politics, but they were still talking about how fed up they were. But we had to find a way to keep our message that the working class must organize itself politically, and election day is just one day. We have 364 days to organize our forces and fight.
The work we were doing here in Michigan did not go unnoticed in other parts of the country. People were reaching out to us, asking not so much why, but how we were doing the work.
In 2020, the Working Class Party had 12 candidates in Michigan, one more than the year prior and nine since the start four years prior. So we were seeing growth here in Michigan, but there was also a Working Class Party campaign in Maryland. The party was now in two states. Working class people in another state were standing under the same banner, the working class banner, to say, “YES, we need our own mass party.”
I need to take a moment to remind some people of what challenges we were facing during these campaigns. This is 2020 and we were in the midst of the COVID crisis. Our face-to-face conversations turned into mask-to-mask, Zoom; if they took place at all. We had to change the way we connected with the people. We had to talk through the fears people were having. Not to mention this was a presidential election year. Trump-Pence & Biden-Harris; both sides unable to navigate the population through the crisis, just more empty promises. Despite these difficulties, over 40% of the votes for Working Class Party in Michigan came from areas where we didn’t even campaign. This showed us that people were connecting with the name; it spoke to them.
In 2022, we were still suffering under the effects of the COVID pandemic. Inflation; decent jobs were disappearing; public services were declining; the changing climate with its intensified storms, floods and fires; and over one million people in the U.S. dead from COVID, the worst rate of death of any developed country. We lost a long time supporter and candidate, Phil Kolody, that year. Through it all we managed to still put forward 11 Working Class Party candidates in Michigan; one statewide, seven Congressional and three Senate positions.
We also grew in Maryland from one to two positions; Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Yes, I said it. Governor and Lieutenant Governor. We had Working Class Party candidates in Maryland running for the top spots in the state.
The work that had begun here in Michigan had grown to Maryland and in 2022 we added another state. Working Class Party also ran a campaign in Illinois and ran one congressional position. People in Illinois started hearing the message. They agreed that there was a need for a mass party of our own, the Working Class Party.
2024. This is a very recent history that I know many of us would like to forget. This was a presidential election year with the Harris/Trump race. Working Class Party put forth 15 candidates in Michigan; two statewide candidates; seven candidates ran in congressional districts that together reached half of Michigan’s population. With one exception, their votes were all higher, with the increase running from about one thousand to over five thousand more, and five had a higher percent of the vote. We ran seven candidates for State Representative in districts around Detroit. Even if districts and/or candidates were different, overall, the vote of our candidates for these positions was higher.
Working Class Party of Illinois has been on the ballot in one congressional district touching parts of Chicago and its near suburbs since 2022, but in 2024 we got over five percent of the vote, which means Working Class Party for the first time qualified to remain on the ballot for the next campaign in that state.
Due to restrictive elections rules in Maryland, they were forced to go through the petition phase again.
The message of Working Class Party made it out west to California. The laws in California are so restrictive that putting a new party on the ballot is nearly impossible. So those that wanted to see the working class build its own party had to collect signatures to put up an independent candidate. Legally, he may have been considered “non-partisan,” but his whole campaign made it clear that his goal is to see the working class build its own party.
Working class people across this country were starting to stand up and say we want our own party.
And here we are in 2026. Since our last election campaigns, two former candidates passed away, Louis Palus in 2024 and David Harding from Maryland in 2025. Despite our losses, Working Class Party still had growth. Working Class Party is putting forward 20 candidates in Michigan; eight for U.S. Congress, seven for Michigan state Senate, and two for the state House. In addition, three candidates were nominated for statewide education boards.
There are four candidates running in Maryland, for Governor, Lt. Governor, State Senator and State Delegate. In Illinois, there are two candidates, one Congressional and one State Senate. There is also one independent candidate running on our platform in California.
In 2016, we had three Working Class Party candidates in Michigan. Today we have 20.
In 2016, out of 14 Michigan congressional districts we had two candidates. In 2026, out of 13 congressional districts we have eight candidates.
In 2016 the Working Class Party was in one state. Today we are in four states.
It may not seem like it sometimes, but Working Class Party is growing. The working class is moving.
I think this would be a good time to acknowledge all of the candidates that we have had over the year.
We have come a very long way and have a long way to go to have the mass working class party we need, but we must take time to acknowledge all of the hard work and dedication that has been put into getting us here today.