Support for Socialism on the Rise as US Primaries Approach

As the US heads into the 2026 midterm primaries and positions itself for the 2028 presidential cycle, fresh polling data from mid-2026 signals a deepening ideological contest that is reshaping the Democratic Party and challenging the broader neoliberal order. 

Democratic socialism is no longer a marginal current but one with demonstrably growing popularity, especially among youth and working-class segments of the Left. This momentum, rooted in the traumas of the 2008 financial crisis, amplified by Occupy Wall Street and the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, is manifesting in primary challenges to establishment Democrats. 

Even residual support for “capitalism” overwhelmingly favours reformed, state-guided versions over neoliberal market fundamentalism. Strikingly parallel anti-neoliberal impulses within Trumpism and MAGA further illustrate the crisis of the old hegemony. In Gramscian terms, we are witnessing an extended “war of position” in which counter-hegemonic ideas and forces are gaining traction in civil society and electoral arenas.

This helps explain why US President Donald Trump and the Republicans are so concerned about “communism” in America, with establishment Democrats echoing the same line. The ground is shifting beneath their feet.

Polling snapshot and primary momentum

July 2026 surveys capture this dynamic: A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found nearly 40% of registered voters open to a socialist presidential candidate, with 46% support among those under 30 and 64% among Democrats. CNN/SSRS reported that roughly one-third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now self-identify as democratic socialists, a group that is younger (mostly under 45), more working-class (overwhelmingly earning under $100k, less college-educated), and highly motivated for upcoming elections.

The recent major interview by the New York Times – the mouthpiece of the Democratic party establishment – of Bhaskar Sunkara (founder of Jacobin, president of The Nation, and long-time leader of the Democratic Socialists of America), is instructive of how serious is the desire to harness, co-opt and neutralise socialist policies.

Socialistic attitudes are translating into relatively widespread primary gains. Democratic Socialists of America-aligned (DSA) candidates and democratic socialist platforms have scored notable wins and near-misses in recent cycles, building on the visibility of figures like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. With 2026 midterms approaching, socialist-leaning challengers are leveraging economic populism – housing costs, healthcare, inequality – to oust establishment Democrats seen as too conciliatory toward corporate interests. The energy from the massive “No Kings” protests – where millions mobilised in 2025-2026 against perceived authoritarianism and elite policies – is channelling into electoral organising, giving socialist factions a platform to push the party leftward in contested primaries.

DSA maintains a real-time tracker of nationally endorsed candidates for the 2026 cycle. As of mid-August 2026 (after the August 11 primaries): The win rate is over 50% from a total number of races tracked (170), with over 60 wins, 54 defeats and over 50 contests still to come.

Examples of vote shares (percentages) in completed primaries at the federal level include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14; 87%), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12; 74%), Melat Kiros (CO-1, unseated long-term incumbent, 53%), and Claire Valdez (NY-7; 56%)

In addition, there were numerous state legislative and local wins and performances especially in New York, Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan, Washington. Many DSA candidates run in multi-candidate Democratic primaries or safely progressive districts, so percentages often reflect plurality wins or dominance rather than two-way head-to-heads. Absolute vote totals (where reported) range from a few thousand in local/county races to tens or hundreds of thousands in major urban Congressional districts.

Broader progressive candidates

“Progressive” is a wider category (Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, Working Families Party, Bernie-aligned, etc.). They have also recorded a series of primary victories in 2026 (New York, Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, California, Philadelphia-area, etc.), often overlapping with or adjacent to DSA efforts. Though specific national aggregates for all progressives are even less centralised than DSA’s, notable patterns include strong showings in deep-blue urban districts and some upsets of establishment/incumbent Democrats.

Long-term trends since 2008

This is the culmination of a post-2008 trajectory. The Great Recession shattered confidence in deregulated finance capitalism, producing foreclosures, bailouts for the rich, and austerity for the rest. Occupy Wall Street (2011) injected the language of the “99% versus the 1%” into mainstream discourse. Bernie Sanders’s 2016 (and 2020) campaigns then normalised democratic socialism for millions of young voters, dramatically expanding DSA’s reach and influence. Gallup data tracks the result: Democratic favourable views of socialism rose from around 50% in 2010 to 66% by 2025, with net support increasing fivefold. Youth cohorts now frequently show socialism or democratic socialism outpolling or rivalling capitalism.

Material conditions sustain this: Millennials and Gen Z entered adulthood mired in student debt, precarious work, and a housing crisis, let alone ‘forever wars’. Polls consistently tie support to these lived failures of neoliberalism rather than abstract ideology. In upcoming primaries, candidates emphasising rent control, public options in healthcare, wealth taxes, and anti-corporate measures are poised to tap this reservoir of discontent.

Qualified capitalism and the broader rejection of neoliberalism

Although support for capitalism retains an edge in national head-to-heads (44% vs. 19% preferring it to socialism), it is heavily qualified. Economist/YouGov and similar polls show strong majorities backing government-led solutions: national health insurance replacing private insurers (over 50%), free public college (55%), and expanded public housing (57%). Among Democrats, practical socialist-framed policies often outperform pure capitalist options. This is not a call for Soviet-style planning but for a New Deal-style reformed capitalism with robust state guardrails – precisely the terrain socialist challengers are contesting in primaries.

Gramscian war of position

Antonio Gramsci’s framework illuminates the stakes. In mature capitalist democracies, with their dense networks of civil society institutions, a direct “war of manoeuvre” (direct physical assault on state power) is premature. What is required is a prolonged “war of position”: building counter-hegemony by contesting cultural common sense, forging historic blocs, and developing organic intellectuals who reshape assumptions about economy and power.

Post-2008 developments fit this pattern. OWS shifted the Overton window on inequality. Sanders and DSA constructed alternative narratives and organisational infrastructure. No Kings protests served as mass theatres for linking anti-authoritarianism to economic justice, while primary campaigns represent the electoral front of this positional struggle. Socialist forces are not yet dominant, but they are eroding neoliberal legitimacy and forcing establishment Democrats into defensive primaries. The “ousting” of centrists is a direct expression of this contestation.

Cross-Spectrum Anti-Neoliberalism

The crisis is not confined to the Left. Swathes of Trumpist and MAGA voters reject neoliberal globalisation through tariffs, industrial policy, immigration controls, and rhetoric centring American workers against coastal elites and offshoring. Polling shows meaningful working-class support, including some youth crossover on pocketbook issues. Both socialist surges in Democratic primaries and MAGA economic nationalism expose the same underlying fracture: neoliberalism’s inability to sustain broad-based legitimacy.

It is the ruling elites’ mission to keep American workers and young people divided on race, gender and broadly ‘culture’ war issues. Racism is the preferred option of the power elite every time the Left gets stronger in the United States. 

Conclusion: Primaries as Battleground

Heading into the 2026 primaries and beyond, the data reveal a leftward pressure within the Democratic coalition that establishment figures can no longer easily contain. Socialism’s rising appeal, built on post-2008 foundations and materialised in protest and electoral challenges, combined with qualified, reformist views of capitalism and cross-aisle rejection of neoliberal orthodoxy, points to a genuine organic crisis of hegemony. 

In Gramscian perspective, these primaries are key trenches in the war of position. Outcomes will determine whether a more social-democratic or socialist-inflected bloc can consolidate, or whether fragmentation allows the old order to persist. The demand for systemic alternatives is broad, material, and increasingly organised. Elites wedded to the status quo ignore it at their, and the country’s, peril.

Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and the associate dean of research, School of Policy and Global Affairs, City St George’s, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and writes the American Imperium column at The Wire. He is the author of several books including Foundations of the American Century and is currently writing a book on the history, politics and crises of the US foreign policy establishment.

Bamo Nouri is an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at City St George’s, University of London and an independent investigative journalist and writer with interests in American foreign policy and the international and domestic politics of West Asia. He is the author of Elite Theory and the 2003 Iraq Occupation by the United States.

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