Willa Kenoyer (13 December 1933 in

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Pa ...

– 28 March 2020 in

Albany, Oregon Albany is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the eleventh largest city in that state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton counties, jus ...

) was the

Socialist Party USA The Socialist Party USA, officially the Socialist Party of the United States of America,"The article of this organization shall be the Socialist Party of the United States of America, hereinafter called 'the Party'". Art. I of th"Constitution o ...

(SPUSA) candidate for

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

in the

1988 U.S. presidential election The 1988 United States presidential election was the 51st quadrennial presidential election held on Tuesday, November 8, 1988. The Republican nominee, incumbent Vice President George H. W. Bush, defeated the Democratic nominee, Governor Michae ...

Candidacy

The SPUSA was not on the ballot in 1984 (the previous election) due to a lack of interest among its members, and only hoped for a vote total of five digits, expecting to do better in the next century, according to the chair Anne Rosenhaft. Kenoyer's running mate was Ron Ehrenreich; they also ran on the

Liberty Union Party The Green Mountain Peace and Justice Party, known as the Liberty Union Party (LUP) until 2021, is a political party active in the U.S. state of Vermont. It is a self-proclaimed "non-violent socialist party". The LUP was founded in 1970 by former ...

(LUP) line in

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

, defeating Herbert G. Lewin of the

Internationalist Workers Party The Internationalist Workers Party (Parti ouvrier internationaliste, POI) was a French Trotskyist party established in 1936 after the exclusion of militant Trotskyists from the French Section of the Workers' International in 1935 and dissolved in 1 ...

by a vote difference of 199–66 in the LUP primary, which socialists use to gauge the relative strength of their campaigns. They hoped to spread their ideas, finding some similarities to the goals of Jesse Jackson's campaign, with significant differences regarding the military and intelligence agencies, and faulted him for, in their opinion, attracting more people to the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

. The Democratic party's ultimate nominee

Michael Dukakis Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...

and platform were criticized by the campaign. Kenoyer and Ehrenreich received 3,882 votes in the election. At the time she was working as a freelance journalist in Shelby, Michigan, and had been a co-chair of the Citizens Party. She was a divorced mother of four who learned about socialism from her father, a member of the Sawmill Workers. Her mother was a member of the

Newspaper Guild The NewsGuild-CWA is a trade union, labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's busin ...

. Prior to running for President, she served a six-year term on the Economic Development Commission for Oceana County, Michigan, to which she was reappointed in 1987.

Later career

In 2004, she was appointed to the

Van Buren County, Michigan Van Buren County is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 75,587. The county seat is Paw Paw. The county was founded in 1829 and organized in 1837. History The county was named for Martin Va ...

Family Independence Agency Board. She was reappointed for a term expiring in October 2009."Udow Announces Local DHS Board Appointments
Michigan Department of Human Services. March 30, 2007.

References

External links

Alternative Views #354: A Socialist President? (video)
Frank Morrow (producer). Alternative Information Network. Recorded March 12, 1988. Women in Michigan politics Socialist Party USA presidential nominees Candidates in the 1988 United States presidential election 20th-century American politicians Female candidates for President of the United States 1933 births Living people People from Oceana County, Michigan People from Van Buren County, Michigan 20th-century American women politicians People from Tacoma, Washington 21st-century American women {{Michigan-politician-stub