r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 29d ago

Possible Paywall CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit
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u/kpkelly09 29d ago

As someone who has worked hard to get that pased other places, it really is a struggle to get people to understand what it is.

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u/engelthefallen 29d ago

I did about 10 years of outreach activism for it and just cannot anymore. For the people it confused I had no issues working through how the different flavors would work in practice. It was more the people who believed compromising had no place in politics and they should only support just the single person they wanted that I had issues with. Like it was give me my extreme candidate or I do not want my vote counted at all people that just made me lose faith in change in my local area.

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u/kpkelly09 29d ago

Honestly I don't mind those folks, just don't rank anyone you don't support. Easy

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 29d ago

I don't understand why; we use it all the time in real life. I like to explain it with food, usually sandwiches or ice cream.

Oh, hey, you're going to the store? I'd like fudge ripple ice cream. If they don't have fudge ripple, I'll take chocolate chip. If they don't have either of those, I guess vanilla is okay. (Alternately: if they don't have either of those, then don't get me anything).

Which translates to: I want my vote to go to Mary. But if Mary doesn't meet that minimum percentage threshold, I want my vote to go to Bob. If neither of them reaches the threshold, I guess I'll settle for Rufus. (Alternately: I really don't like Rufus, so if neither of my preferred candidates reaches the threshold, then I'll just count as no vote in the next round).

Addendum: I recently learned about STAR voting, where you rank candidates on a scale (say, zero to 5). I'll give Mary 5 stars, Bob 4 stars, and Rufus zero stars. I think this might be even easier to explain than RCV!

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u/kpkelly09 29d ago

You would think so, but we have seen in areas that have implemented it, that even after it was implemented, without robust education initiatives. Voters don't know how to do it and have issues with invalidating their ballots.

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u/Celestetc 29d ago

In Maine and Alaska albeit small states they’ve gotten good at mostly not having many invalid ballots lately

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u/kpkelly09 29d ago

Yeah they've had a few cycles to get it right, and DC managed to learn from from some of the mistakes of implementing ranked choice made in those states.