A new Gallup poll showed that Democrats under the age of 50 have lurched to the left and now embrace socialism in larger numbers, while rejecting capitalism.

Overall, 54% of the poll respondents still favored capitalism, but among Democrats only 42% favored capitalism, while 66% favored socialism.

Independents were pretty evenly split, with 51% viewing capitalism favorably.

Similarly, 57% of the overall poll respondents viewed socialism negatively, but only 39% of Democrats said the same.

Socialist mayor?

The poll is significant because there is a candidate, Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democrat primary for mayor of New York City, and who identifies as a democratic socialist.

His victory has made centrist Democrats very afraid that he will impact the party's brand nationally and brand them all as democratic socialists.

While this may be fine with a majority of Democrats, they know it will not fly in most general elections.

New York is so liberal that Mamdani could actually win there, but this would not be replicated in most other parts of the country.

Getting pretty obvious

Conservatives have been saying for years that the Democrat party is becoming synonymous with socialism, and it's getting harder for them to deny when candidates like Mamdani win elections.

"Socialist" is a common dig from conservatives to liberals, and one that they could plausibly deny until recently (even if their policies move steadily in that direction).

How much longer they will be able to do that is anyone's guess.

Clearly, though, most Americans are not going to go along with a move toward socialism.

It's satisfying to see the Democrat party splintering on this issue, but we probably shouldn't get too used to it.

After all, conservatives have plenty of areas where they split off into factions, and Democrats seem to be more skilled than we are at exploiting those splits for their own gain.