WASHINGTON, D.C. — Socialism is enjoying its strongest positive rating in Gallup’s tracking, but translating changing national attitudes into Democratic victories is another matter — especially in Republican-controlled Iowa, where promising polls have repeatedly collided with unforgiving election results.
Gallup’s September 23 report found 43 percent of Americans view socialism positively, up from 39 percent last year and the highest reading since the organization began measuring the question in 2010.
Yet capitalism remains more popular at 55 percent, and small business towers over both at 95 percent.
The findings describe a country with mixed economic attitudes. They do not establish that Americans want a socialist government, or that Iowa’s Republican grip is about to break.
Independents drive socialism’s latest gain
The newest increase came from political independents, whose positive rating of socialism rose from 37 percent to 45 percent.
Democrats remained much more receptive, with 65 percent viewing socialism positively, compared with 14 percent of Republicans.
The generational divide was also substantial. Among adults ages 18 through 34, socialism received a 57 percent positive rating, compared with 43 percent for capitalism. Americans 55 and older favored capitalism by 65 percent to 34 percent.
Big business, meanwhile, received a positive rating from just 35 percent of Americans.
Still, socialism remained more unpopular than popular overall: 53 percent viewed it negatively.
Gallup asked respondents for their immediate positive or negative impressions of economic terms. It did not ask them to choose a governing system or endorse a particular candidate.
Iowa remains firmly under Republican control
For Iowa readers, the political backdrop is unmistakable: this is a red state governed overwhelmingly by Republicans.
The GOP holds the governor’s office and substantial majorities in both legislative chambers. Republican control of the Legislature has continued since 2017, giving the party years of power to shape state policy.
The most recent presidential election reinforced that position.
Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in Iowa by roughly 13 percentage points in 2024. Official results recorded 927,019 votes for Trump and 707,278 for Harris — a Republican advantage approaching 220,000 votes.
NIT previously covered Iowa’s presidential electors casting all six of the state’s electoral votes for Trump and JD Vance.
That is the electoral record Democrats must overcome.
New polling gives Democrats an opening
Recent Iowa polling nevertheless suggests Republicans face competitive statewide races this fall.
A Marist survey released September 22 found Democrat Josh Turek leading Republican Ashley Hinson, 50 percent to 42 percent, in the U.S. Senate contest. Democrat Rob Sand led Republican Zach Lahn, 54 percent to 42 percent, in the governor’s race.
Marist interviewed 1,050 registered Iowa voters September 17–20. The survey’s reported margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Those results followed an August poll covered by NIT that put Sand ahead while Hinson maintained a narrow Senate lead.
The surveys used different pollsters and voter populations, however, so the differences cannot simply be treated as a precise measurement of Democratic gains.
Neither survey establishes that support for Iowa Democrats amounts to support for socialism. Gallup’s national economic-attitudes survey and Iowa’s candidate polls measure different things.
Promising polls have disappointed Iowa Democrats before
There is good reason to resist declaring a Democratic breakthrough before ballots are counted.
In early October 2020, Quinnipiac University polling put Democratic Senate challenger Theresa Greenfield ahead of Republican Joni Ernst, 50 percent to 45 percent.
Ernst ultimately won by about 6.6 percentage points.
The 2024 presidential race supplied an even more dramatic warning. A widely publicized late Iowa poll showed Harris ahead of Trump, 47 percent to 44 percent. Trump instead carried the state comfortably.
That survey was not the only reading available: a separate late Emerson poll showed Trump leading by 10 points.
The lesson is that favorable polling has sometimes given Iowa Democrats hopes that election results emphatically failed to fulfill. It does not prove every Democratic lead is false or that today’s polls will repeat yesterday’s errors.
Sand himself provides a counterexample to claims that Democrats cannot win statewide: he won reelection as state auditor in 2022 while Republicans retained the governor’s office.
Republicans have the stronger recent statewide electoral record. Democrats now have polling suggesting an opportunity. November will determine whether that opportunity becomes a reversal or another disappointment.
A national survey, not an Iowa forecast
Gallup’s findings came from telephone interviews with 1,200 adults nationwide August 3–24, with a reported margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.
The survey provides no Iowa-specific measure of socialism’s popularity.
Its clearest message is that economic labels provoke different reactions: Americans can express growing interest in socialism while retaining overwhelming affection for small business.
Whether those attitudes change who governs Iowa remains a separate question — one that will be settled by voters, not a national favorability chart.
As more people become aware of how socialism works and exactly what it is, they move towards accepting it. Socialist programs provide the majority of Americans lifelines to things they likely couldn’t afford on their own. Public schools are one example as are police and fire protection, food assistance programs, medical coverage and many other socialist programs are invaluable to the majority of us but for years, those programs weren’t thought of as socialism. Now, that is changing and hopefully Iowa can return to its glory days of old rather than being home to greedy corporations and wealthy individuals who don’t want to pay taxes – taxes that help provide services that they call socialism.
Public schools are proving to be completely destructive, rife with grift, and infested with loser teachers that could not hold a job salting fries.