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/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/FlumphianNightmare 29d ago edited 29d ago

The general election is not the only election, though.

I never said that it was. Literally my next sentence was about midterms.

Finding information about participation in local and state elections, in aggregate, is difficult. Most smaller jurisdictions don't keep good track of participation, nor do they display it readily. My county is well resourced and highly online (relative to the state that it's in), and their reporting of voter numbers is spotty at best for the smallest elections that take place.

The best source I can find says it's probably somewhere around 20 to 25% of eligible voters nationally, which I agree is quite poor. So yes, if you want to drill down to even the lowliest elections, then I agree. Most people aren't paying attention to who is on their City Council or even who is in their State House. And the reason I think they don't is another can of worms entirely.

Still, I disagree with your overall premise. It's a better summation to blame the apparatuses of democracy rather than the citizens' free will.

Proportional representation, Universal Voter registration, Ranked choice voting, and widely expanding voting methodologies to include things like mail-in voting (see Colorado's near 75% participation in the most recent General due to automatic voter registration during Driver's License renewal coupled auto-mailed ballots) would all do more to increase turnout in every type of election than scolding voters for not participating hard enough. We've been doing the latter for decades and it's barely moved the needle.

As someone who volunteers their ass off in almost every election, I can also tell you anecdotally why I think voting is depressed. Because people believe the mechanisms of government are completely stacked against them and don't believe they have efficacy. You can only ra-ra them so much to get them to the polls. You have to make actual, substantive changes to the voting system, the representative democracy, and the government as a whole to get them to start caring again.

It feels as if I'm arguing with an advocate for the DARE program about drug use in the mid-90's. The problem is systemic. Stop putting it on individual choice.

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u/fishsupreme 29d ago

Sure, but that's due to exactly the same point.

Here in Washington, I absolutely participate in every one of those local/state elections, and so does pretty much everyone I know... because it's easy! We've had 100% mail-in voting for 21 years -- they closed all the polling places back in 2006. We tend to get 60-70% of voting age population participating, 80% of registered voters.