The left keeps claiming that its candidates purport to speak for working-class people and advance working-class interests, only to discover that supporters of democratic socialism are disproportionately affluent and elite-educated. It’s true in New York City—where two democratic socialists just won their primaries—and it’s also true in Maine, where Democratic nominee Graham Platner hopes to defeat incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Platner’s campaign rhetoric often includes dramatic statements about how working people in Maine are falling in love with his extremely progressive economic policies and agree with his tactic of incessantly demonizing the wealthy.
“We have watched this state become essentially unlivable for working-class people, and it makes me deeply angry,” he said in his campaign announcement video. “The enemy is the oligarchy. It’s the billionaires who pay for it and the politicians who sell us out.”
But according to New York Times polling, Platner actually trails Collins by roughly 21 points among non-college-educated respondents. Platner’s voters are much more highly educated than Collins’ voters, and thus far less likely to be members of the working class, broadly defined.
This is unsurprising, as support for democratic socialism remains largely an elite phenomenon. In New York City, Darializa Avila Chevalier, an outright communist sympathizer, did better with higher-income voters; her opponent, incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, prevailed in lower-income areas by 40 points.
If democratic socialism is once again having a moment, it’s not because throngs of working-class voters have finally decided that greater—or even total—government control of the economy and mass wealth redistribution would make their lives better. Rather, it’s wealthy and elite-educated leftists inflicting Platner’s politics on the rest of their party.
