Democrats aligned with democratic socialism are winning key primary races in major cities, including U.S. House candidates backed by Zohran Mamdani, New York’s first democratic socialist mayor.
Janeese Lewis George also recently won the Democratic primary in the D.C. mayor’s race with the support of the local branch of the Democratic Socialists of America.
A handful of prominent left-wing politicians, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), identify as democratic socialists, a polarizing label in U.S. politics. Here’s what to know about it.
1. What is democratic socialism?
The short answer is that it depends, to an extent, on whom you ask.
Democratic socialism combines a “commitment to democracy” with a “skepticism about the compatibility of capitalism and democracy,” said Robert Lieberman, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.
The approach to addressing that incompatibility, he added, “is where it gets complicated because the skepticism comes in a lot of different flavors.”
True democratic socialism means a democratically elected government that controls all means of production, services and distribution, according to Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown University.
“But that’s not what most people who call themselves democratic socialists, at least politicians who get elected, are talking about,” he added. “They’re talking about a welfare state … with stronger unions and higher taxes on the rich.”
Sanders, the highest-profile U.S. politician to identify as a democratic socialist in recent years, has cast his political beliefs as the “unfinished business” of the New Deal economic initiative pushed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“Democratic socialism means to me requiring and achieving political and economic freedom in every community in this country,” Sanders said in 2019.
Mamdani has advocated for several policies aimed at alleviating the high cost of living for New Yorkers, such as freezing rent costs for stabilized tenants, making city buses fare-free, providing public child care, raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030, and creating city-owned grocery stores that buy and sell at wholesale prices. He says he would pay for his plans by raising the corporate tax rate and taxing New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million annually at a flat 2 percent rate.
“When we talk about my politics, I call myself a Democratic socialist in many ways inspired by the words of Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] from decades ago, who said: ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country,’” Mamdani said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
What many U.S. politicians have outlined as their take on democratic socialism, Lieberman noted, sometimes more closely aligns with “what was often in Europe described as social democracy.”
“That is a commitment to democratic rule … with policies that were aimed at smoothing over the rough edges of capitalism, making industrial economies work better for working people, mitigating inequality rather than a sort of forceful, often undemocratic push for workers’ control of the government,” he said.
2. Which prominent politicians consider themselves democratic socialists?
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) have all said they identify as democratic socialists. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) referred to himself as a “proud member” of the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in 2020, but he dropped his affiliation with the DSA about two years later.
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a self-described democratic socialist, also won office in 2025, and Lewis George is poised to be the first democratic socialist to lead the nation’s capital next year after winning the Democratic nomination for D.C. mayor in a deep blue city.
3. Who are the Democratic Socialists of America? What do they stand for?
The group describes itself as “the largest socialist organization in the United States.” It’s a nonprofit corporation that states that capitalism must be replaced with democratic socialism, “a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods and society.”
“We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation,” the DSA says of its goals.
The DSA also seeks to differentiate itself from socialism associated with authoritarianism, stating, “Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history.”
4. How is democratic socialism different from other forms of socialism?
Authoritarian socialism, associated with countries such as the Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea, is different from democratic socialism, Lieberman said, because it “is rooted in a belief that any way the working class is able to gain power is legitimate, whether it’s democratic or not.”
The rejection of democracy can result in sham elections, tightly controlled speech and the seizure of property that’s “justified on behalf of the socialist project,” he said.
5. What policies are deployed in social democracies?
Countries exhibiting the qualities of social democracies, such as Sweden, Finland and Denmark, typically have capitalist economies with substantial social welfare programs.
“Everyone is covered by health insurance. … There’s housing allowances, sometimes a lot of public housing. … If you get unemployed, there’s a long period of retraining where you’re paid almost as much as you would have been paid in the other job,” said Kazin, listing examples of policies within social democracies.
“There’s an attempt to de-commodify a lot of public goods — that is, make sure that people don’t have to worry about how much health care costs, how much housing costs, how much transportation costs,” he added. “They’re no longer commodities bought and sold. … These are goods that the government basically makes sure everyone has, whether they can afford them or not.”
6. What is the American public’s perception of socialism and democratic socialism?
A September 2024 NBC News poll found that a majority of registered voters, 55 percent, had “somewhat negative” or “very negative” feelings toward socialism. Some 18 percent said they had a “positive” or “somewhat positive” view of socialism.
A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that 36 percent of U.S. adults viewed socialism somewhat or very positively, down from 42 percent in 2019. Additionally, the survey found that Democrats have a much more positive view of democratic socialist political leaders than do the overall pool of individuals surveyed.
Some 33 percent of Democrats surveyed said they liked political leaders who identify as democratic socialist, while 18 percent disliked leaders with that description. Among U.S. adults, 18 percent said they liked leaders who identified that way, compared with 45 percent who said they disliked it.
7. What do critics have to say about democratic socialism?
Republican critics, including President Donald Trump, have sought to conflate Mamdani’s political views with communism. They’ve also sought to associate proponents of socialist ideas within the Democratic Party with economically ravaged, authoritarian socialist countries such as Venezuela.
“So-called ‘democratic socialism’ is nothing more than a Trojan horse, and it would destroy our country and destroy our way of life,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned in a 2019 Senate floor speech.
Critiques of socialism don’t just come from Republicans. In 2023, the House passed a resolution “denouncing the horrors of socialism” with bipartisan support, going after “socialism in all its forms” but not mentioning democratic socialism specifically. The measure never advanced in the Senate.
Many prominent Democrats also reject the socialist label.
Former president Joe Biden has repeatedly referred to himself as a capitalist. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts) has advocated for additional regulation of the economic system but also still describes herself as a capitalist.
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