Poll: Support for ‘Socialism’ Dropping in U.S., but Millennials Still Supportive

A new poll released Monday by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation shows that while support for “socialism” is dropping in the U.S., the Millennial generation (23-38) remains the most supportive of the idea.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for the foundation, included 2100 respondents over the age of 16. No margin of error was provided as of the time of publication.

The survey reports that overall, 58% of Americans held favorable opinions of capitalism in 2019, down 3% from 2018’s figure of 61%. However, only 49% of members of Generation Z (16-22) and 50% of the Millennial generation see capitalism favorably.

At the same time, socialism became less favorable overall in 2019, dropping from 42% favorability in the 2018 poll to 36% favorability this year. Moreover, Generation Z saw favorability drop from 48% to 40%, while Millennials only saw a drop of 1%, from 50% to 49%.

36% of Millennials view communism favorably, up 8% from 2018; 35% of Millennials see Marxism favorably, up 6% from 2018.

The survey adds: “50% of Millennials say they are ‘somewhat likely’ and 20% of Millennials say they are ‘extremely likely’ to vote for a socialist candidate, doubling from 10% in 2018, Americans overall are more hesitant about voting for a ‘democratic socialist’ than they were last year (53% ‘never’ or ‘hesitant’ in 2019 versus 47% in 2018).”

Many Millennials came of age during the global financial crisis — and the election of President Barack Obama.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is the most well-known “democratic socialist” presidential candidates, though several of his fellow contenders for the Democratic Party presidential nomination have embraced socialist policies such as “Medicare for All” (including those arriving in the country illegally) and the so-called “Green New Deal.”

More respondents (27%) named President Donald Trump the “biggest threat to world peace” than any other leader.

The survey’s full results will be released later on Monday; only some of the data were public as of this writing.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.