43 Percent of Likely Iowa Democratic Caucus-Goers Self-Identify as 'Socialist'

Look, it's not just that partisan Democrats have "favorable" views of socialism. They are socialists.

Here's the New York Times poll from December, "Poll Watch: Democrats, Even Clinton Supporters, Warm to Socialism."

See that? They're warming up to the ideology of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Russia.

Of course, it's not just "warming up." Anyone who's attended a Democrat Party town hall or antiwar protest knows that the driving force of hardline Democrat Party activism is the communist left. I've documented this countless times over the years. It's ridiculous.

But with the Bernie Sanders campaign, the Democrat Party's socialist foundation is out in the open. Shoot, Democrats are shouting their proud socialism from the rooftops. Almost half of likely Iowa caucus-goers proclaim their socialist bona fides.

See the Washington Post, "This number proves Bernie Sanders can win Iowa":

Iowa is a swing state. But when it comes to its first-in-the-nation caucuses, its conservatives tend to be quite conservative, and its liberals tend to be quite liberal.

And even socialist.

As the country begins to decide how it feels about the idea of socialism — thanks to Bernie Sanders's ascendant Democratic primary campaign — it's worth noting here that it's a word that many Democratic caucus-goers have clearly embraced. And, in fact, many even call themselves "socialists."

A little-noticed data point in the new Selzer & Co. Iowa poll, in fact, shows that 43 percent of likely voters in the Feb. 1 caucuses say they would use the word "socialist" to describe themselves.

And to be very clear, this question was not whether they would vote for a socialist or sympathize with socialism; it's whether they consider themselves socialist.

The 43 percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers who self-identify as socialist is actually more than the number who identify themselves as capitalist — 38 percent.

As our own Dan Balz notes, Sanders does better among self-described socialists — though he doesn't quite have a monopoly on them. Balz writes that socialists account for "58 percent of Sanders’s supporters and about a third of Clinton’s."

There isn't great polling on how many Americans overall consider themselves socialists, but a Gallup poll in June showed that just 47 percent of Americans would even be willing to vote for a socialist candidate. Among Democrats, that number was 59 percent.

More recently, a November New York Times/CBS News poll showed 56 percent of Democratic primary voters nationally said they had a positive view of socialism.

And that's not the only identifier that suggests a friendly electorate for Sanders. Forty-four percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers say they consider themselves "anti-Wall Street." Again, these are voters over whom Sanders has no monopoly, but he does have a leg up on Clinton, a more Wall Street-aligned former senator from New York...

Still more.

And previously, "Bernie Sanders Is a Hardline Communist."