By Sharon Zhang
This article was originally published by Truthout
Views of big business and free enterprise have declined significantly in the past decade.
New polling finds that Americans approve of socialism more than ever, surpassing the 40 percent threshold for the first time in a Gallup survey as left-wing ideas and politicians surge in popularity.
According to Gallup polling conducted last month, 43 percent of Americans say they have a positive view of socialism. In Gallup’s 16 years of polling this question, the proportion of Americans saying as such has never before surpassed 40 percent. This is a four-point increase from 2025, when 39 percent said they had a positive view of the ideology — a slight increase from 36 percent in 2010.
Socialism is most popular among young people, with 57 percent of those aged 18 to 34 saying they view it positively.
Democrats’ view of socialism has steadily become more popular since 2010 — with those viewing it positively rising from 50 percent in 2010 to 65 percent in 2019 — and has stayed steady since then.
The big change in the past year, rather, has been driven by independents; in 2025, 37 percent of independents said they had a favorable view of socialism, lower than the average. That proportion rose by 8 points in the past year to 45 percent — now higher than the average among all Americans.
The polling comes as socialist figures like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have surged in popularity, with Mamdani enjoying strong approval ratings among New Yorkers and in national surveys. It adds to a slate of other polls showing surging popularity for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the democratic socialist ideology, with Quinnipiac finding recently that over a quarter of voters in the U.S. now consider themselves supporters of DSA.
The surge in popularity comes even as the Trump administration is waging a fierce campaign to suppress left-wing groups and progressive ideology through its National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) initiative, which broadly equates principles like “anti-Americanism” and “anti-capitalism” with “criminal” speech.
But the capitalist principles that have long dominated the U.S. political system are also dropping in popularity, Gallup found.
According to the latest poll, only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of big business, down from a high of 58 percent in 2012. Those who favor “free enterprise,” or the idea that businesses should operate relatively free from government regulation, have dropped from a proportion of nearly 90 percent to 77 percent in this year’s polling.
Approval of capitalism has also declined slightly from historic highs. For much of the 2010s, roughly 60 percent of Americans said they view capitalism positively. But that has since declined to roughly 55 percent.
While the changes to these opinions have largely been driven by Democrats, Gallup notes that the latest uptick in socialism’s approval “comes entirely from political independents.” Among Democrats, only 65 percent say they approve of free enterprise — down from 88 percent in 2021. Meanwhile, opinions of big business have cratered entirely among Democrats, from 48 percent in 2016 to a mere 17 percent in the latest poll.
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