I love Baskin Robbins pink bubblegum ice cream. Unfortunately it is not popular enough for them to carry it throughout the year. So, they only offer it during the summer even though they are open throughout the year. People can like something or some of the features of an object while recognizing that the rest of the public does not share their views.
Most of us don’t enjoy pointing out that something they like or can accept is not popular. I certainly don’t. There is an elephant in the room. We are going to have to talk about it. It is very early to be taking a victory lap for the entire primaries based upon a tie in Iowa, no matter what a prognosticator may say. Iowa and New Hampshire have had a tremendous track record for predicting the nomination of Democratic nominees for president. However, they are both 90% plus white. A long time ago, that was still relatively close to representing even the Democratic Primary electorate. That isn’t the case any longer. That number is 60%. Even in the past, there are candidates who had a special connection to Iowa and who, therefore, won Iowa that did not go on to be the nominee. Bernie Sanders has something of a tie to Iowa in as much as Iowa has a lot of white liberals. Yet, his share of the vote dropped dramatically from the last election cycle. It was less than Hillary Clinton, but near 50%. So, support for him can change. His home state neighbors New Hampshire. So, we have a tie in one state and a neighbor’s advantage in another. And neither of these states are representative of the Democratic Party as a whole. Nevada and South Carolina will matter a lot more. We only have two C rated pollsters out of South Carolina recently and even both of them still gave Biden a decided advantage. Fox News is an A- pollster and they are due to poll South Carolina soon. This will tell us a lot more than the C rated pollsters. Most recently, Bernie’s 18% support from African Americans compares unfavorably with Biden’s majoritarian 51%.
Still, despite how very early it is and that we only have a tie in Iowa and a likely win in a neighboring state and the fact that these two states are not representative of the party , Nate Silver has given Bernie Sanders a 48% probability of winning the Democratic Primary. As a result of the tie in Iowa and a predicted win really early on, we have supporters of Bernie Sanders declaring that he has already won the Democratic Primary for President and everybody else in the Democratic Party better accept it. Yet, four of the five most recent national polls have Biden up by an average of more than five percent, the one poll that has Bernie up has him up by one point, and Bernie still only has the support of no more than 27% of the electorate. This means that 73% of the Democratic Primary electorate (at least) supports somebody other than Bernie and since Bernie is almost universally known with near 100% name recognition, there must have been some reason why most, near three quarters of our electorate, chose some other candidate.
Nevertheless, Vanity Fare took this as a justification for building an argument for the overwhelming popularity of socialism in the United States. This is not surprising given the slant of Vanity Fare. However, since they decided to bring it up and it is becoming increasingly difficult not to talk about the elephant in the room, then it can be done here by somebody who sees a lot of the good in socialism, especially the socialism of Bernie Sanders, but who is intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that his or her own feelings do not automatically transfer over to other Democrats. Despite misgivings towards some of the public surrogates and campaign officials (Zephyr Teachout, Nina Turner, Gray, Sirota) and some of the more antagonistic and aggressive supporters of Sanders here, I like the policies of Bernie Sanders, even ones that I know most other people don’t.
So, here are three of the most recent polls concerning socialism. I saw a poll trumpeted on Morning Joe was an NBC / Wall Street Journal poll of registered voters which showed that 53% of registered voters opposed socialism and only 19% of registered voters supported socialism. Now, let’s realize that this is a world view. This is not one minor detail. Since this is a world view, unpopularity of this magnitude is deeply, deeply concerning. Bernie Sanders is a Democratic Socialist. This is a specific type of socialist, but most voters will only key in on the word socialist. Since he labels himself that way, Republicans and Trump will certainly identify him that way and he will be identified with an entire world view which has the support of only 19% of registered voters and has the opposition of 53% of registered voters. I don’t see how, when Bernie Sanders self-identifies as a type of socialist, the fact that 53% of registered voters oppose socialism and only 19% of registered voters support socialism is not a concern of those who support Bernie Sanders for president. The juxtaposition with the 63% approval rating of Donald Trump’s handling of the economy is not good. 19% support does suggest a 1972 McGovern blowout (and McGovern too had all of the energy and excitement of the left at the time) .
Let’s move on to our linked polls. First up is this one from Gallup.
Here is the title,” Less Than Half in U.S. Would Vote for a Socialist for President.”
That doesn’t sound promising to me.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Less than half of Americans (47%) say they would vote for a qualified presidential candidate who is a socialist -- the same percentage Gallup found in 2015. A socialist candidate is the only one among a dozen hypothetical candidates about whom a minority of Americans say they are willing to give their vote.
47% is the ceiling. That’s for a socialist Jesus because some of those who might accept socialism could be turned off by some other feature of the candidate. It is striking that it is the only one among a dozen hypothetical candidates that earned less than majority support. That includes an atheist, a gay or lesbian person, or a Muslim. All of those candidates earned more than 50% support. The socialist is the only one who topped out at below 50%. Now this is from May 5, 2019. So, this number has not moved from last cycle. Now, we would have thought that every voter in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses knew that Pete Buttigieg is gay, but there are low information voters who don’t. Trump and the Republicans will make sure that if they know nothing else about Bernie Sanders, they will know that he is a socialist. And once he is identified fully after attack ads using Bernie’s own self-identification, then his poll numbers will, unfortunately, drop since only 47% of registered voters are willing to vote for a socialist. Bernie Sanders already has a negative favorability among all registered voters. Last time, we thought that even though Hillary Clinton had negative favorability that because her favorability was less negative than Donald Trump, it would be okay. That might have been true if not for the electoral college. However, with the electoral college, we would be better off running a candidate who did not have a negative favorability.
Next, we come to this poll. The title is, “Poll: Capitalism Is As Popular in America as Socialism Is Unpopular.” This refers to the poll mentioned above.
Fifty-two percent of those polled said they viewed capitalism positively, while just 19 percent said the same about socialism. In an almost mirror flip, 18 percent had a negative view of capitalism, while 53 percent viewed socialism negatively.
The poll of 1,000 registered voters was conducted last week (and has a 3.1 percentage point margin of error).
"Democratic primary voters have a net-positive impression of socialism (40 percent positive, 23 percent negative), and Dem voters ages 18-34 view it even more favorably (51 percent to 14 percent)," reports NBC. "But key general-election groups like independents…suburban voters and swing-state voters have a much more negative impression of socialism."
The last sentence seems important. Independents, suburban voters and swing state voters have a much more negative impression of socialism and these are the very voters who would likely decide who wins the electoral college.
Then, we have another poll to examine. This poll is from Pew Research. The title of it is, “New poll: Capitalism is more popular than socialism.”
A new Pew Research poll finds that “a much larger share of Americans have a positive impression of capitalism (65%) than socialism (42%).” The intensity of anti-socialism sentiment (63 percent of Republicans have a very negative view) dwarfs that of pro-socialism sentiment (only 14 percent of Democrats have a very positive view).Majorities have positive impressions of ‘progressive’ (66%), ‘conservative’ (60%), ‘liberal’ (55%) and ‘libertarian’ (also 55%).”First, “socialism” is a red flag for Republicans and Republican-leaners to a degree that “progressive” (which 40 percent of Republicans view favorably) is not. There’s not even all that much payoff among Democrats, since 33 percent of Democrats have a negative view of that term, while only 12 percent have a very positive view of socialism.
.Although this has better marks for socialism, it is still only favored by a minority of 42%. Furthermore, 33% of Democrats have a negative view of socialism. These voters are probably older since older voters are more likely to oppose socialism than younger people. Yet, older voters have higher participation rates than younger voters. Previously, a person I greatly respect and admire recalled an election for which I was not around, the 1972 McGovern election and stated that the problem was the dissipation of support for McGovern among conservative Democrats. This, somehow, was supposed to alleviate the problem. It didn’t. Part of the problem of running too far to the left of the electorate is that we will lose support of conservative Democrats. Conservative Democrats oppose socialism. I would have been in the minority in all of these polls, by the way, supporting socialism. So, it is very likely that these conservative Democrats would not vote for our nominee if they are a socialist. We need somebody who can unite the party, a person who is an unabashed progressive can wear the label progressive and still have majority support among the electorate and defeat Donald Trump. These conservative Democrats are needed for us to hold a majority. Third Way groups won about 25 red to blue seats in 2018, Our Revolution candidates won zero red to blue seats in 2018. Without them, we don’t hold a majority in Congress and without that majority, we don’t pass anything and we certainly don’t impeach the president. These voters won’t change their minds. They are older and the inevitable will happen. However, we are not there now. We have to face the statistics as they are now. If these conservative Democrats don’t vote or vote for Trump or even vote third party because of “socialism”, then we can’t defeat Donald Trump. These conservative Democrats would be making a huge mistake in my opinion, but they don’t think it would be a mistake.
This essay discusses polling on socialism. She found that polling on socialism is more popular than socialism itself.
An Axios/Harris Poll online survey in late February found that 37% of Americans would prefer to live in a socialist country. In a Fox News survey of registered voters, 25% had a favorable view of socialism. A new Zogby Analytics online poll found a similar result: 29% of likely voters had a positive view. In the poll, only 13% of Democrats wanted the national Democratic Party to declare itself a socialist party
.Here we have less than 30% of registered voters holding a positive view of socialism. While this is better than 19%, it is still decidedly a minority view.
So, let’s summarize some of the things that we have learned:
1. Only 47% of voters would consider voting for a socialist.
2. Numerous polls show socialism to be supported by less than 30% of voters.
3. A majority of voters, 53% of registered voters, hold a negative view of socialism.
4. Even a third of Democrats hold a negative view of socialism.
5. The voters who are likely to decide the electoral college mostly oppose socialism.
Although Republicans and Trump would accuse any candidate we run of being a socialist, none of the other candidates self-identify as a type of socialist. We have considered a number of polls and all of that show that socialism is opposed and disliked by a solid majority of voters. This is a world view issue. That means that it sums up the way a candidate looks at the world. There is a difference between holding one unpopular view and holding a world view that is unpopular.
Trump and the Republicans can present evidence in attack ads that they run nationwide, especially in swing states. They can show the quote in which Bernie Sanders says, “Government should own the means of production.” They can show the interview from The Today Show in which Bernie Sanders was introduced as a socialist and acknowledged it shortly after he won his election to be mayor. They can show when Bernie Sanders was in Moscow for his honeymoon and praised the socialism that he found there. They can show him calling himself a specific type of socialist, a Democratic Socialist, but what voters will key in on is the word “socialism”. Then, they will run an attack ad showing that Bernie Sanders will raise taxes on the middle class to support a Medicare for All proposal which would apply to every human within our borders and which eliminates all private health insurance companies and eliminates premiums, copays, and deductibles and covers dental, hearing, vision and prescription drugs. I happen to think that it is a great policy even with raising taxes on the middle class because the tax increase is less than the money saved by the plan. However, running on increasing taxes on the middle class is not going to be supported by most registered voters. Once again, Trump has a 63% approval rating for his handling of the economy. Therefore, the juxtaposition with what they will portray as radical socialism and Trump’s 63% approval of his handling of the economy will not play to our benefit.
Since socialism is so widely viewed in negative terms among registered voters, when he is attacked in attack ads by Trump and the Republicans as a socialist with the evidence mentioned above, his poll numbers will drop like a rock. He will be identified as a person whom only 47% of the electorate will even consider voting because of his views that 53% of registered voters oppose and that only 19% support. All of this will contrast very badly in the minds of the 63% of registered voters who approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. This means that it will be nearly impossible for him to defeat Trump after the attacks are run which tie Bernie Sanders and socialism together.
I don’t get any pleasure out of saying this. I will certainly vote for him if he is the nominee. I will do everything I can to help him win if he is the nominee . I like his policies. I am not criticizing him or his policies. What I am saying is that polling indicates that when he is fully identified as a socialist by most registered voters, his polling will drop precipitously and he will lose the electoral college to Trump. If he is going to be our nominee for president, we need to know what polling reveals about his future as a candidate.