Quinnipiac poll finds 59 percent of Democrats now call themselves DSA supporters

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows nearly six in ten Democrats identify as supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America, a finding that lands as the party struggles with historic-low favorability and a string of socialist primary victories.

The poll, conducted September 3, 6 among 970 registered voters across the contiguous United States, found that 59 percent of Democrats consider themselves DSA supporters, while just 30 percent said they do not. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points, including the design effect. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported the results alongside a wave of DSA-backed candidates defeating establishment Democrats in primaries across four states.

Among all voters polled, the numbers tell a different story. Only 26 percent consider themselves DSA supporters, while 66 percent do not. Forty-three percent said a candidate who identifies as a DSA supporter would make them less likely to vote for that person, compared to just 17 percent who said it would make them more likely. Thirty-five percent said it made no difference.

That gap, a majority of Democrats embracing the DSA label while the broader electorate rejects it by wide margins, captures the bind the party now faces heading into future elections.

Five DSA-backed candidates toppled Democrats in recent primaries

The polling data did not arrive in a vacuum. In recent months, DSA-endorsed candidates have racked up wins in competitive races. Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, Melat Kiros in Colorado, and Donavan McKinney in Michigan each defeated incumbent Democratic lawmakers in primaries. Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania and Claire Valdez in New York won open-seat races.

The DSA itself has been open about its ambitions. In an October 2025 post on X, the organization urged supporters to donate, writing that "our candidates are going up against corporate backed opponents, and they're going to need your help to get over the finish line this November."

Those candidates got over the finish line. And the incumbents they replaced were not Republicans, they were fellow Democrats who could not hold their own seats against a socialist insurgency inside their own party.

DSA's platform proposes drafting a new constitution

In June, the DSA released a platform titled "Workers Deserve More." The document goes well beyond standard progressive policy proposals. It includes a call to "draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic."

House Speaker Mike Johnson responded on X on June 27, calling out the platform directly.

"The DSA Communists have now published their insane agenda to take over Congress and America. We will not let it happen! WE ARE READY FOR THIS FIGHT!!"

Congressional Republicans have publicly criticized the platform. Johnson's post framed the DSA's goals as a direct challenge to constitutional governance, and the Quinnipiac data suggests the audience for that message inside the Democratic Party is larger than many assumed.

A DSA North Star survey found that DSA supporters generally have high levels of education but tend to fall within lower- to middle-income brackets. That profile, educated but economically frustrated, helps explain the appeal of an organization whose platform calls for rewriting the nation's founding document.

The Daily Caller News Foundation contacted the DSA for comment on the poll results. The organization did not immediately respond.

Democrats' favorability has cratered to a record low

The socialist surge inside the party coincides with a broader collapse in public confidence. A separate Quinnipiac poll found that only 30 percent of voters hold a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, the lowest mark since the university began tracking the question in 2008. Fifty-four percent view the party unfavorably. Democrats lost the White House and the Senate in the last cycle and failed to retake the House, while Republicans made gains among Black, Hispanic, and younger voters.

DNC Chair Ken Martin acknowledged the damage in blunt terms: "We do have a brand problem." He attempted to project optimism, adding, "When you hit rock bottom, there's only one direction to go, and that's up, and that's what we're doing."

But the Quinnipiac poll on DSA support suggests the party's base is not moving toward the center to fix that brand problem. It is moving further left. When 59 percent of your voters embrace an organization whose stated platform includes replacing the Constitution, the brand issue is not a communications failure. It is a substantive one.

Some prominent Democrats have tried to navigate the tension without taking a clear stand. Roy Cooper declined to reject the socialist platform outright, telling supporters the party must "be together." That approach, refusing to draw a line while the DSA draws sharper ones, illustrates the leadership vacuum at the top of the party.

Speaker Johnson, for his part, has shown no reluctance to press the advantage. He has hammered Democrats over their internal losses, arguing that the party's left flank is winning the argument inside the coalition even as it loses the broader electorate.

Forty-three percent of all voters say DSA ties make a candidate less appealing

The general-electorate numbers in the Quinnipiac poll underscore the political cost. Nearly half of all voters, 43 percent, said a candidate's identification as a DSA supporter would make them less likely to vote for that person. Only 17 percent said it would help. For a party already at historic-low favorability, nominating candidates who carry a label that repels more than twice as many voters as it attracts is a strategy with obvious limits.

Yet the primary results suggest those limits do not apply inside the Democratic electorate. DSA-backed challengers are winning because the party's most active voters want them to win. The incumbents who lost were not caught off guard by some fringe movement. They were outrun by the dominant current in their own base.

That dynamic has created an opening Republicans are eager to exploit. Democrats fleeing their own records face a two-front problem: they cannot win primaries without the DSA-aligned base, and they cannot win general elections with it.

The numbers do not require editorial embellishment. A majority of one major party's voters now align with an organization that wants to scrap the Constitution and start over. The rest of the country has noticed, and the favorability numbers prove it.

When a party's base embraces an agenda the broader electorate overwhelmingly rejects, the result is not a brand problem. It is a math problem, and no amount of optimism from party headquarters changes the arithmetic.