Sanders' Impact on Millenials: "He's Moving a Generation to the Left"

[Glia]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/bernie-sanders-is-profoundly-changing-how-millennials-think-about-politics-poll-shows/

Portside Date: April 27, 2016
Author: Max Ehrenfreund
Date of Source: Monday, April 25, 2016
Washington Post

After Bernie Sanders's defeat in New York last week, his chances of winning the Democratic nomination are dwindling. Yet, even if he loses this campaign, a poll published Monday [1] suggests that Sanders might have already won a contest that will prove crucially important in America's political future.

The poll of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 finds that Sanders is by far the most popular presidential candidate among the youngest voters. This group's attitudes on a range of issues have become more liberal in the past year.

The data, collected by researchers at Harvard University, suggest that not only has Sanders's campaign made for an unexpectedly competitive Democratic primary, he has also changed the way millennials think about politics, said polling director John Della Volpe.

"He's not moving a party to the left. He's moving a generation to the left," Della Volpe said of the senator from Vermont. "Whether or not he's winning or losing, it's really that he's impacting the way in which a generation — the largest generation in the history of America — thinks about politics."

Apparently, Sanders's popularity with young voters isn't just some shallow fad or a cult of personality with little connection to substantive questions of politics. Young people, it seems, are taking Sanders's ideas to heart.
In one of Harvard's polls of young people in 2014, the number who agreed that "basic health insurance is a right for all people" was 42 percent. That figure increased to 45 percent last year and to 48 percent in Monday's poll.

- See more at: https://portside.org/print/2016-04-2....p0VMPjTC.dpuf