If there ever were an issue on which Democrats and Republicans could agree, it should be that socialism is bad and capitalism, with a little tweaking, is good. Yet Republicans are the loudest voices saying so. That irony is not lost on political observers as the November election approaches.
Democratic socialists, meanwhile, are making headway among voters. Their momentum has been emboldened by the 2025 election of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist. And candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America have advanced in a few dozen primary elections this year.
The numbers are still modest in the broader landscape of American politics, but they signal a shift. For a generation of younger voters, the label “socialist” no longer carries the Cold War stigma it once did. Instead, it has become shorthand for a critique of inequality and a demand for structural change. Free college, universal health care, and rent control are not fringe ideas anymore; they are planks in a platform that resonates far beyond the left.
Republicans have seized on the trend, warning that Democratic socialism would lead the country down a path of economic ruin. Yet their warnings seem to have done little to slow the movement’s rise. In districts where DSA-endorsed candidates won, local issues often mattered more than ideological labels. The candidates themselves are not always doctrinaire; many run on bread-and-butter concerns like affordable housing and public transit.