A majority of the public would not vote for a socialist to be president of the United States, according to a new poll.
The poll, which was conducted by Gallup and published on Tuesday, found that 45% of respondents would support a socialist for president, a drop from 2015 when 47% said they would. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they would not vote for a socialist candidate.
While most independents were not supportive of a socialist president, a clear majority of Democrats, 76%, said they could back a socialist. Just 17% of Republicans, however, said the same.
The question was not directly tied to any specific candidate, though Sen. Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat running for president who self-identifies as a Democratic socialist. Sanders’s embrace of the socialist label has concerned some Democrats. During the party’s primary debate on Friday night, Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden both said that picking a socialist as the nominee frightened them.
“Bernie and I work together all the time,” Klobuchar said. “But I think we are not going to be able to out divide the divider in chief, and I think we need someone to head up this ticket that actually brings people with her instead of shoving them out.”
The poll also revealed that 98% of respondents could support a black president, 95% could support a Catholic president, 94% could support a Hispanic candidate, 93% could support a Jewish president, and 93% could support a female president.
The margins of support narrowed for other personal traits. Just 60% of respondents said they would support an atheist president, which was lower than the 66% who would support a Muslim for president. Age doesn’t seem to be a factor for most voters, with 69% saying they would support a president over 70 years old and 70% saying they would support a president under 40.
The poll, which was conducted from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29, included responses from a random sample of 1,033 adults living in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The margin of error was 4%.
