OCALA, FL (352today.com) – When Brittni Winkler moved to Ocala from Miami, she lasted about six months before the political climate wore her down. She wanted a local Democratic Socialists of America chapter and did not know whether one existed.

“I moved here a year and a half ago, and pretty much like six months since living here, I was getting really discouraged by the political climate, feeling pretty hopeless, and watching a lot of leftist media,” Winkler said. “And (I) wanted to start a (DSA) chapter. So, I reached out, applied to National, reached out to Alachua County and asked them, ‘Do you know of anybody in Marion County?’ and they connected me to James. James connected me with everybody else.”

Some of the people Winkler was connected with were Saoirse Pratt, Kathie Cloud, Stephen Tripi, Robert Mastronardi, Diana Vance and James Elmore. Together with Winkler, the seven comprise the face of the local effort.

That connection helped produce Marion County DSA, an organizing committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, formed in Ocala in 2026. The group said the seven members have met consistently since April. National DSA approved them as an organizing committee in mid-July 2026, giving them until mid-July 2027 to adopt bylaws, elect officers and seek full chapter status. Organizers said they now count 64 active dues-paid members in Marion County and organized locally to build a lasting chapter, educate residents and press working-class priorities in a conservative area.

How the group came together

Tripi said the local effort started online.

“Well, it really started through online spaces like Facebook, I’d say,” Tripi said. “It started with meeting folks like Kathie and Robert on Facebook, and sort of connecting with James over time.”

Mastronardi said the first in-person meeting came in March.

“I met Stephen through a different Facebook group. It was a local LGBTQ Facebook group, and we, my husband and I, actually met up with Stephen at Midtown Station,” Mastronardi said.

Cloud said that a rumor pointed her to another circle, not a DSA chapter.

“I had heard a rumor that there was a DSA meeting on Sundays at a specific time, which turned out to be Saoirse’s group, but I hadn’t been able to go,” Cloud said.

Elmore said he had been pushing national staff since early 2025.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I actually got my membership and applied, I think, early in 2025, and I’ve been hounding national that whole time to get us going. And then just all of a sudden, it all kind of coalesced. Some of us met each other at these local protests that we’ve been organizing as well, and it just all really came together in the last couple of months. And here we are, just a few weeks out from being ready to submit our paperwork for our final status,” Elmore said.

Organizing committee versus chapter

Under DSA’s national constitution, a group of dues-paying members in a defined area may become an organizing committee if the National Political Committee approves. A committee is not a chartered chapter. To become a chapter, it must later submit an affiliation agreement, define its geography, show support from members in good standing, adopt bylaws, and elect officers.

Mastronardi said national staff required a county profile first.

“National DSA wanted a complete demographic profile of Marion County, and that includes all zip codes, territories that we cover, or our chapter would cover… We’re talking about statistics and historical records, as well as what our initiatives are, what our interests are, what our major employers are, what our major industries are, etc. All of that is submitted with a record of all of our legal names,” Mastronardi said.

“We are all dues-paid members of DSA, so we do have monthly or yearly dues that we pay because DSA is entirely funded by membership. We do not have PACs, super PACs, corporate or special interests. No billionaires, no millionaires funding us. And after that, they reviewed it. The National Political Committee reviewed over it, and then they approved us for organizing committee status. That allowed us to be listed on National’s website. So mid July, we have until mid-July of 2027 to become an official chapter,” he continued.

He said the required research came from public sources.

“With the research, it’s always going to be based on research institutes and organizations, census, different media organizations,” Mastronardi said.

Membership, he said, is defined by dues.

“So the way that the Democratic Socialists of America works is that you are considered a member if you contribute dues,” he said. “It can be on a monthly basis, annual basis. As long as your dues are continually paid, you are considered an active dues-paying member in good standing. If your dues were to lapse, so say, for instance, you change your credit card or your debit card, and all of a sudden, they can’t charge that card anymore for your dues, that becomes a lapsed member, and so our rosters indicate that there are well over 100 DSA members historically in Marion County, and that goes back decades because DSA has been around. But currently, we are sitting at 64 active dues-paid members.”

Until they become a chapter, he said, the limits are strict.

“Due to the unique composition of DSA and the pipeline of chapter organizing, we can’t accept money. We can’t accept donations. You know, the dues obviously go to national, but even national, when we become a chapter, we’ll receive 20 percent of the dues. We are not a 501(c)(4). We cannot endorse. We cannot accept donations. We cannot have expenditures. We cannot run campaigns,” Mastronardi said.

He said chapter status would make the local group a 501(c)(4), a tax-exempt nonprofit that’s allowed to advocate for the social good and engage in limited political activity.

“Recognition of what DSA is, is a 501(c)(4) incorporated entity, and that is what the chapter status will be seeking; as such, it’s not just politics. We are allowed within a certain means to be involved in politics, but it’s also about community engagement, community organizing,” Mastronardi said.

Winkler said the committee is still in the beginning stages and is focused on education.

“Right now, since we’re not a formal chapter yet, and we don’t have like committees for all of these different initiatives, we’re focusing on education,” Winkler said. “We did a tech workshop just to teach people how to use Canva and like how to use Facebook.”

Mastronardi said they are also building coalitions with groups such as Ocala Demands Action, No Kings, and the NAACP.

What Marion County DSA wants

Elmore named data centers as a priority.

“One of the things we’re doing is fighting back against data centers,” Elmore said. “The last thing we want to see is a data center out here in the middle of beautiful Marion County, and certainly we don’t want to see it sucking up our water since we depend on the aquifer. And it’s funny that my sixth-grade science students understand the issues better than the people that are running this county.”

Kathie Cloud tied that fight to surveillance.

“Also, Flock cameras and digital surveillance tied in with data centers. It’s all kind of one big thing,” Cloud said.

Mastronardi said development and special interests were listed in the organizing-committee application.

“We’ve got multiple individuals who are in positions of power and decision-making who are loaded economically, and they are definitely using that influence and the power of the almighty dollar, which is failing miserably, by the way, to pretty much make Marion County a concrete jungle,” Mastronardi said.

Elmore said education about socialism is part of the work.

“A big thing is most people don’t really understand what socialism is. They don’t realize that America is actually inherently a socialist country with capitalism layered over the top. We’ve been a socialist country for quite a while as far as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all these other social programs we have, and people don’t realize that,” he said.

On Amendment 3—the “abolish property taxes in Florida” amendment—Elmore said:

“Amendment 3 is going to take money away from the budgets for just about everything, and a fantasy that tourism dollars are somehow going to replace that is not realistic or sustainable. You know, as Florida continues making a bad name for itself on the international stage, people are going to stay away from Florida. People are staying away from the country of America. You know, you look at dead zones like Las Vegas right now.”

Diana Vance defined success in community terms.

“I think it’s mainly about community, about caring about each other and our neighbors, and that involves no data centers and the environment and just the getting rid of the authoritarian attitude that prevails (in) politics today,” Vance said.

Elmore said existence itself is already a win.

“I think we’ve already had our big win. Just existing is a win, especially in a red county like this. When we go to protests, people flip out about the fact that we’re even there,” he said.

Saorise Pratt pointed to smaller material goals.

“Having this formation in the committee within Marion County is a huge win, but one of the bigger things, and I think a goal for all of us is just to alleviate social suffering,” Pratt said. “So, how can we chip away at medical debt for the people in Marion County? How can we chip away at legal funds or legal impacts that people are facing in Marion County? Things that are constantly pressuring people into positions of not feeling worth within Marion County—how can we alleviate that? So even small wins, like if we take $10,000 of medical debt and alleviate that with family in Marion County, that’s a win for us.”

Mastronardi listed both policy and mutual aid as wins.

“I think wins can be anything from making policy change or impacting policy to represent the working class and not the developer class in Marion County, but also it can be, you know, working and helping alleviate the economic pressures that impoverished and disenfranchised communities across Marion County are experiencing and continue to, especially underneath this current federal administration,” Mastronardi said.

Building support in a conservative county

Elmore said he thinks support already exists among people who misunderstand the word socialism.

“The support’s already there,” he said. “There’s people out there who support us, and they don’t know it. They’ve just been miseducated. They’ve been misinformed. They’ve been propagandized into what socialism is. And when they sit and actually talk to somebody like us and realize that we want the same things for their family, then they come around to that. One way we do that is I know that… a lot of these people have been out canvassing.”

Cloud described door-knocking.

“When you knock on someone’s door, and they see that there’s another left-leaning person there, the relief on their face is, it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, Hi, I’m not the only one. Hey, what are your concerns?’ They’re so happy to know that they’re not alone because they feel alone, and it’s such a rewarding feeling,” Cloud said.

Elmore said he would like to exist without MAGA supporters bothering him.

“I would like to just be able to exist without having MAGA flip out every time they see me. You know, they see the socialist pins and patches, and they lose their minds. They act like they’re being invaded by North Koreans or something. And I don’t know. I would just like to exist in a world where we don’t have to have that happen every time,” Elmore said.

He also said readers should not treat the Democratic Party as a leftist organization.

“I’d just like to say for anybody reading the article, understand that the Democrats are not a leftist party; they are in fact center right, all right? And so, if people want a true choice in leftist politics, they need to engage with groups like the DSA because they’re not going to get leftist politics out of the Democratic Party,” he said.

“We’re fighting for everyone that is not in a position of power, that is not manipulating the systems in our democracy to get richer and richer and richer,” Mastronardi said.

Elmore put the same point another way.

“I’ve been wealthy, and I’ve been poor. And there is not a single thing that the Democratic Socialists of America are advocating for that’s going to hurt a single person in this country, except the rich,” he said.

An organization under threat

Mastronardi said the group does not respond to online attacks with threats of its own.

“We don’t see DSA members and socialists, and even Democrats, for that matter, going out into public forums or social media channels and threatening people’s lives,” Mastronardi said.

He said critics often lift photos from the group’s social media, drop them into large Facebook groups and trigger a flood of threats to show up at homes and meeting spaces. He also said a recent public social at Moody’s Brewing in Paddock Market led to one-star Google reviews aimed at the business.

“We weren’t passing out paraphernalia. We weren’t even doing anything. We’re just having coffee and having chats,” Mastronardi said.

Pratt said threats are not new to her.

“I’ve been organizing in Central Florida with various groups for going on 16 years now. I started as a teenager at 16 years old, involved with a lot of underground organizations. We would do a lot of mutual aid, anti-racist training, stuff like that. I’ve had a lot of experience with people showing up to my house in Ocala,” Pratt said.

Marion County DSA is still an organizing committee, not a chartered chapter. The seven organizers who answered Winkler’s call have until mid-July 2027 to adopt bylaws, elect officers and ask national DSA to make the Ocala group official.

Until then, they say the work is simpler than the label that follows them: public meetings, education and a chapter that can last after any one of them leaves town.

Winkler put that test in one line.

“The idea is to have a sustainable chapter that will continue to thrive here and grow.”