Supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) tend to be highly educated but fall into the lower-to-middle income brackets.
The DSA voting bloc consists of voters who graduated college but are in the lower-to-middle income bracket. Eighty percent of DSA members aged 25 or older had bachelor’s degrees, while 45% had household incomes below $60,000 per year, according to the DSA North Star’s most recent survey from 2021.
Thirty-five percent of this demographic earned graduate degrees, according to the survey.
Common occupations among DSA members include teachers, social workers, non-profit and public sector employees, according to DSA North Star. A third of respondents were teachers, scholars, academics, a private-sector white collar worker or a tech worker.
Fifteen percent of the voter bloc were also unemployed, disabled or retired, according to the survey. Just 4% were blue collar workers.
Only 19% of Americans with bachelor’s degrees have household income below $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, voters with graduate degrees making between $30,000 to $60,000 were the most likely voter bloc to identify as “very liberal,” according to a Cooperation Election Study.
A majority of DSA members, 57%, also lived in cities, and just 8% lived in rural areas, according to DSA North Star.
Students majoring in English and the arts move more to the left, while those studying business and engineering tend to shift right, according to researchers Micheal Vazquez and Michael Prinzing. In the 2024 election, 55% of voters with college degrees voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris, while 56% of those without degrees voted for President Donald Trump.
DSA members are on track to field their largest congressional delegation in its history after several members won their primaries against establishment Democrats. Young, college-educated voters living in densely urban areas formed a core voting bloc for candidates aligned with the socialist left in the latest election cycle.
Democratic New York candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, Democratic New York assemblywoman and DSA member Claire Valdez and others won young and college-educated voters by significant margins. DSA candidate Melat Kiros defeated incumbent Democratic Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette in June, who served 29 years in Congress.
The Democratic establishment may suffer more losses in Michigan’s primaries Tuesday. In the Senate race, former Wayne County health director and Abdul El-Sayed, who is challenging Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens and has supported the DSA, campaigned on supporting Medicare for All, abolishing ICE and permitting so-called “gender-affirming care.” Stevens, who positioned herself as the moderate candidate, supported reforming rather than abolishing ICE, implementing a public option over Medicare for All and expressed strong support for Israel.
El-Sayed led Stevens by a 15-point margin as of Thursday, according to an Emerson College Polling/WLNS/WOODTV survey.
(DCNF)
