Young Democrats want their party to continue its lurch leftward, according to a new survey.
A Harvard-Harris poll conducted this month asked self-identified Democrats for their take on efforts to move the party further from the political center. “Do you support or oppose movements within the Democratic Party to take it even further to the Left and oppose the current Democratic leaders?” the survey inquired.
In total, 52 percent of Democrats said they support those movements, while 48 percent said they oppose them. That number ticked up substantially among millennial Democrats between the ages of 18 and 34, a full 69 percent of whom were supportive.
The poll found young Democrats were also more likely to believe moving the party further Left would help (44 percent) rather than hurt (30 percent) its chances in the next election. In total, however, more Democrats of all ages believed it would hurt (40 percent) more than help (29 percent) their chances.
Nevertheless, millennial support for a more liberal Democratic Party tracks with conventional wisdom. “It’s hard to overemphasize how completely and utterly Sen. Bernie Sanders dominated the youth vote to this point in the 2016 presidential campaign,” a Washington Post report on the Vermont independent’s primary successes explained, further noting “Sanders won more votes among those under age 30 than the two presumptive major-party presidential nominees combined.” In the 21 states that voted by June 1, 2016, young voters cast more than two million votes for Sanders, compared with roughly 766,000 for Hillary Clinton.
As Democrats seek to determine just how big their party’s tent should be, the progressive inclinations of its youngest members could compel leaders to keep moving Left.
The Harvard-Harris poll was taken online among 2,159 registered voters from Oct. 14-18.
