The US needs more working-class political candidates | Dustin Guastella and Bhaskar Sunkara

Union mechanic Dan Osborn's independent campaign outperformed Kamala Harris by 14 points in Nebraska

Dan Osborn's performance this month was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak election cycle for progressives. Although he ultimately lost, the independent US Senate candidate outperformed Kamala Harris in Nebraska by 14 percentage points while running an assertively anti-establishment, pro-union platform. His formula was simple: connect with people about their economic problems, tell them who to blame for them, and tell them what he would do about it.

Now he's starting a new political action committee, Working Class Heroes Fund, to support working-class candidates, something our national politics direly needs.

Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623

Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities