In “a recent survey, 62 percent of American adults under 30 say they hold favorable views of socialism,” reports Campus Reform:
A Cato/YouGov survey conducted in March asked 2,000 American adults a range of questions about U.S. fiscal policy. The survey found that 62 percent of adults under age 30 expressed a favorable view of socialism, while just 38 percent held an unfavorable view.
When asked, “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Communism?”, 34 percent of respondents aged 18–29 answered “favorable,” with 66 percent answering “unfavorable.” Only 14 percent of total respondents held a favorable view of communism.
Cato Institute Senior Editor Michael Chapman explained that the poll did not define socialism, leaving it up to the respondents to determine what the term meant. He noted that regardless of which of the many definitions of socialism the respondents may have had in mind, all forms of socialism share a “disdain for capitalism.”
Support for socialism and communism among 18–29-year-olds exceeds that of the general population and past polls of young adults. A 2019 Gallup poll of 1,500 Americans found that 52 percent of those surveyed aged 18–34 held a positive view of socialism.
A 2020 poll commissioned by the nonprofit Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and conducted by YouGov found that 49 percent of Gen Z held a “favorable opinion of the term ‘socialism.’”…
In the 2025 Cato/YouGov poll, the younger the age group surveyed, the more likely the respondent was to hold a favorable view of socialism…The Cato/YouGov poll also revealed that respondents who identified as Democrats were more likely to hold a favorable view of socialism. It found that 67 percent of Democrats surveyed said they held a favorable view of socialism, with only 50 percent saying the same of capitalism. Overall, 59 percent of all respondents held a favorable of capitalism.
In June 2019, the California Democratic Convention booed former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (D), when he said “Socialism is not the answer.” In March 2019, The Hill reported that “Nearly two-thirds of registered voters in a Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey” say “the Democratic Party supports socialism.”
The progressive website Vox estimated in 2018 that the “Democratic Socialism” agenda backed by Democrats in Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) would cost $42 trillion over ten years (not including the cost of the Green New Deal). That was twice the size of America’s existing national debt, and paying for it would double the size of the federal budget.
In 2018, when Democratic support for socialism was lower than it is today, some Democratic primary voters already showed a preference for socialism. They replaced several Democratic legislators with avowed socialists in safe Democratic seats.
