MAYORAL CANDIDATE
Samantha Hamlin announces run for Troy mayor on Socialist Workers Party line
TROY, N.Y. » Samantha Hamlin is hoping a people-powered campaign is her ticket to Troy City Hall.
Hamlin, 33, a Virginia native who works as a retail cashier at Walmart, is running for Troy mayor on the Socialist Workers Party line.
Hamlin becomes the fourth candidate thus far to enter the race, joining incumbent Mayor Patrick
Madden, a Democrat, Tom Reale, a Republican and Rodney Wiltshire, a Democrat.
Hamlin believes she can offer an alternative to the status quo offered by the two larger political parties.
“The Socialist Workers Party is for building an alliance between working people and small farmers to build a popular movement of millions that can end the dictatorship of capital, take power from the super wealthy rulers and reorganize production of all society based on working- class solidarity and human need,” Hamlin said to campaign supporters at her kick off event in front of City Hall.
“The problems that workers face in Troy are the same problems that we face all over the country and the world. Despite the slight economic uptick the many corporate bosses are experiencing, workers have not seen a recovery since the financial crisis of 2008. Our jobs increasingly don’t pay enough to feed a family and many work multiple jobs just to stay afloat,” Hamlin added of a system she says favors those at the top over average American workers.
Hamlin also cited problems such as a lack of adequate health care, lack of worker safety regulations, opioid and alcoholism epidemics and the suicide rate among veterans, as the issues she believes the current political system has failed to address.
“Workers must break from a reliance on both Democrats and Republicans and organize our own party in a fighting movement of workers and our allies to take power. We cannot solve the problems that we face here in Troy without a movement of millions of working people fighting in our interests,” Hamlin said of the need for an alternative party.
In addition, Hamlin, who attended a rally in Albany supporting licenses for undocumented im- migrants, also called for amnesty for all undocumented workers, a halt to farm foreclosures and an end to ongoing wars overseas.
Hamlin also pointed to the Cuban Revolution, “as an example of how working people can transform ourselves in struggle, take political power and wield it in the interest of workers and farmers worldwide,” after she joined a solidarity brigade to Cuba in 2018 which called for an end to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba.
“Join me door knocking across Troy and in the region to discuss and debate how to build a workingclass movement,” Hamlin added of her hopes of reaching out to voters on the campaign trail.