So who exactly is this progressive left that is polarizing to both the establishment and the neoliberal wings of the party?

Well, we know this wing of the party feels warmly toward ideologies like democratic socialism and supports political insurgents like Ocasio-Cortez, so they may find themselves at odds with party leadership.

But we can also use our survey data to look at how respondents answered a variety of socioeconomic, demographic and attitudinal questions. Given the warm feelings this group has toward democratic socialism and the rising importance of group identities in politics, I focused on analyzing characteristics of respondents who describe themselves as socialists. For starters, they were more likely to be male than female and more likely to be white than nonwhite. (Though identifying as Hispanic or Latinx also made it somewhat more likely that a person would say they’re a socialist.) In general, younger respondents were more likely to adopt the socialist label, as were those who endorsed left-leaning outlooks, like the idea that it’s unjust for a society to have billionaires while others are living in poverty. Many also said they had experienced sexual harassment, with 63 percent of women and 33 percent of men saying it had happened to them.2