42% of Democrats are in favor of socialism

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Many Democrats are feeling the love for socialism.

More than four in 10 Democrats say they have a favorable opinion of socialism, according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults released in January by data and research firm YouGov; this percentage is nearly identical to what the researchers found in May of last year. Meanwhile, only about one in three say they have an unfavorable opinion of the ideology.

Among Republicans, those numbers look significantly different: Just 17% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of socialism, while 71% have an unfavorable opinion of it. And for the most part — no matter what the party — it is young people who are most in favor of socialism. Fully 49% of people ages 18 to 29 have a favorable opinion of socialism, compared with just 23% of those 65 and up.

Also see: Karl Marx is the most assigned economist in U.S. college classes

On the whole, nearly half of all Americans say they have an unfavorable opinion of socialism, the YouGov survey revealed.

That may explain why, in a separate survey, less than half of Americans said they would vote for a socialist president (sorry, Bernie). Indeed, only 47% of Americans said they would vote for a president who was a socialist, according to a survey of 1,500 adults released by Gallup last year, which looked at 11 types of candidates people would be willing to vote for, including a woman, gay or lesbian, Muslim and evangelical.

Among Democrats, 59% would do it, while among Republicans just 26% would. “Republicans and Democrats differ most in their willingness to vote for a socialist candidate, by 33 percentage points,” according to the Gallup data.

Table: Who are Americans willing to vote for?

DemocratsRepublicansEvangelical Christian66%84%Mormon79%84%Jewish92%95%Catholic95%93%Hispanic94%91%Black96%90%Woman97%91%Atheist64%45%Gay or lesbian85%61%Muslim73%45%Socialist59%26%Source: Gallup More from MarketWatch

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