Who supports Bernie Sanders?

While the attention of most of the world's media outside the US is focused on the rise and rise of Donald Trump, and while most political commentators inside and outside the US have Hilary Clinton as the Democratic Party shoe-in for the presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders' campaign is churning up the biggest political change on the ground in the US since the eruption of the Civil Rights movement.

Although he is likely to lose the Democratic nomination against Clinton in the end, Sanders has recently beaten Clinton in Indiana and now in West Virginia. His campaign will peak in the California primary in June. California is expected to be a big win for Clinton in the Democrat primaries particularly as she scores heavily among Black American and Hispanic Democratic voters. (The weakness of Sander's appeal among African-American Democrat voters is the subject of considerable controversy that will be discussed in a later blog.) But Sander's campaign has important news.

Since the beginning of 2016 nearly 1 million new voters have registered in California. Latino registration is 98% larger this year than in 2012 which is generally positive and bucks the effects of de-registration seen in some other States. Perhaps more immediately significant for the Sander's campaign there has been a 70% increase in the number of voters age 18-29 registered in 2016, as compared to 2012. Democratic Party registration in California is generally up 185% over 2012.

Why is the youth vote so significant for Sanders?

A new Harvard Poll of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 found that 51% of respondents do not support capitalism, compared to 42% that do. The results corroborate with previous research indicating a profound shift among Millennials (people born or becoming aware of politics after 2000) towards a negative opinion of capitalist economics.

The pollsters note the results are difficult to interpret, as capitalism means different things to different people. Nevertheless 33% of respondents also indicated a preference for 'socialism'.

The same poll showed Sanders was the most popular presidential candidate among young people. Polling director John Della Volpe said Sanders’ ideas have proven highly influential to Millennials, changing the way they think about politics.

'He’s not moving a party to the left,' Della Volpe said. 'He’s moving a generation to the left. 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.'

Throughout the Sanders campaign, not only has he gathered enormous rallies, with young people at the centre; contrary to Obama's campaign, he has explicitly supported a range of candidates for Congress, including giving support from his own election funds, who have emerged from class struggle or campaigning backgrounds, in order to build a political mass movement, which he has always insisted is essential to win his Political Revolution. He is fighting for a cause that he says will go beyond November's presidential election, whether he wins or not.