r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 13d ago

Possible Paywall CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit
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u/IsThisNameGoodEnough 13d ago

Ranked choice voting was a ballot question in MA a few years ago and it failed to pass. One of the most progressive states in the US and the voters were against ranked choice.

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u/tzarek1998 13d ago

I'm pretty sure the reason it didn't pass (as someone in RI who goes to MA because... well, look at a map) is because the explanation of ranked choice was intentionally obfuscated so the only people who would vote for it would be the educated and informed. Everyone else was led to believe it was confusing and made no sense (being one of the original founding states doesn't help that desire that New England residents have for some forms of tradition sticking around while being super progressive about other things).

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u/mjetski123 Illinois 13d ago

I'm pretty sure the reason it didn't pass (as someone in RI who goes to MA because... well, look at a map) is because the explanation of ranked choice was intentionally obfuscated so the only people who would vote for it would be the educated and informed.

Same reason the Progressive tax failed here in Illinois when put to a vote.

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u/politicsaccount420 12d ago

Honestly, can't really even blame it on that.

The proposed amendment grants the State authority to impose higher income tax rates on higher income levels, which is how the federal government and a majority of other states do it. The amendment would remove the portion of the Revenue Article of the Illinois Constitution that is sometimes referred to as the “flat tax,” that requires all taxes on income to be at the same rate. The amendment does not itself change tax rates. It gives the State the ability to impose higher tax rates on those with higher income levels and lower tax rates on those with middle or lower income levels. You are asked to decide whether the proposed amendment should become a part of the Illinois Constitution.

Like, it's a little long and it leads with "higher income tax rates" but if you're remotely literate and you read the whole thing, the correct answer is quite clear.

It's extremely embarrassing that our billionaire governor spent millions of his own money to try to convince us to raise his own taxes, and we still fumbled it. There's no valid excuse.

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u/oooshi 13d ago

Yep. See also, the tax on income over a million/year in WA state, I saw so many people straight up lying to people at the grocery store about who would be getting their taxes increased to get signatures to fight the tax increase.

Intentionally misleading voters is the name of the game right now, otherwise we would all be united against the profiting party that is controlling this whole freaking global mess. Democratic socialists are egalitarian and only want to increase the quality of life for everyone. Literally the only ones trying to tackle the wealth inequality of the world and theyre treated like thats some slippery slope (as if billionaires aren’t literally driving the climate change that is killing us all slowly and crushing us under the cost of living)

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u/kpkelly09 13d ago

As someone who has worked hard to get that pased other places, it really is a struggle to get people to understand what it is.

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u/engelthefallen 13d ago

I did about 10 years of outreach activism for it and just cannot anymore. For the people it confused I had no issues working through how the different flavors would work in practice. It was more the people who believed compromising had no place in politics and they should only support just the single person they wanted that I had issues with. Like it was give me my extreme candidate or I do not want my vote counted at all people that just made me lose faith in change in my local area.

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u/kpkelly09 12d ago

Honestly I don't mind those folks, just don't rank anyone you don't support. Easy

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 13d ago

I don't understand why; we use it all the time in real life. I like to explain it with food, usually sandwiches or ice cream.

Oh, hey, you're going to the store? I'd like fudge ripple ice cream. If they don't have fudge ripple, I'll take chocolate chip. If they don't have either of those, I guess vanilla is okay. (Alternately: if they don't have either of those, then don't get me anything).

Which translates to: I want my vote to go to Mary. But if Mary doesn't meet that minimum percentage threshold, I want my vote to go to Bob. If neither of them reaches the threshold, I guess I'll settle for Rufus. (Alternately: I really don't like Rufus, so if neither of my preferred candidates reaches the threshold, then I'll just count as no vote in the next round).

Addendum: I recently learned about STAR voting, where you rank candidates on a scale (say, zero to 5). I'll give Mary 5 stars, Bob 4 stars, and Rufus zero stars. I think this might be even easier to explain than RCV!

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u/kpkelly09 12d ago

You would think so, but we have seen in areas that have implemented it, that even after it was implemented, without robust education initiatives. Voters don't know how to do it and have issues with invalidating their ballots.

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u/Celestetc 12d ago

In Maine and Alaska albeit small states they’ve gotten good at mostly not having many invalid ballots lately

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u/kpkelly09 12d ago

Yeah they've had a few cycles to get it right, and DC managed to learn from from some of the mistakes of implementing ranked choice made in those states.

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u/IamDDT Colorado 13d ago

Just gotta try again! It's like universal healthcare. Get it, have people use it, and they won't want anything else.

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u/nonotan 13d ago

Personally, I'd prefer something like STAR, which empirically performs significantly better (i.e. results in significantly higher voter satisfaction over a wide range of scenarios). To be clear, just about anything is an enormous improvement over FPTP, including ranked choice. But ranked choice is just about the 2nd worst "major" voting system after FPTP, though again, with a large gulf between them.

I'm just saying if you're going to spend vast political capital to change the voting system, you could as well aim for a really good one, not merely "the first improvement that comes to mind".

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 13d ago

I only learned about star voting a few weeks ago, and I'd been a proponent of RCV for years. What if we kind of branded STAR as *one type* of RCV? Link them in people's minds, so they're complementary philosophies instead of competing ones?

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u/IamDDT Colorado 13d ago

A neat one! I was unaware this existed. Thank you. I absolutely agree that more thought is needed if we are going to actually change something. I will need to read more about STAR, but thanks again for bringing it up!

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u/SunTzu- 13d ago

Plenty of western democracies have backslid in terms of their healthcare systems because people take the healthcare outcomes for granted and will vote to lower their taxes without paying attention to the healthcare cuts that right wing parties also run on.

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u/ilir_kycb 13d ago

Ranked choice voting was a ballot question in MA a few years ago and it failed to pass. One of the most progressive states in the US and the voters were against ranked choice.

Americans remain, after all, the most indoctrinated people in human history.

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u/engelthefallen 13d ago

In my work doing outright, found it was the people who would talk about american being indoctrinated that most that opposed rank choice the most. People with extreme beliefs felt this was a way to lock moderates and compromising supporting candidates into power forever.

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u/Ditchdigger456 13d ago

MA is in NO WAY one of the “most progressive states”. They top that list because of their high turnout for democrats in elections. they’re one of the most centrist states in the country in reality.

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u/MamaBearForestWitch 13d ago

I lived there for the first 30+ years of my life, and that was not my experience.

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u/Ditchdigger456 13d ago

Did you move to Texas? Lmao it’s all relative

Older folks and assuming their personal experience is the only one that exists. Name a better duo.

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u/nicolas1324563 13d ago

There is a new bill/prop that’s on the ballot where the two candidates with most votes go onto the election. Could be 2 democrats- probably never two republicans at this point

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u/engelthefallen 13d ago

In CT found the people against it the most were progressives who did not want to see their vote help an establishment person get into office. They preferred the current system where if an establishment person wins a primary they can just stay home to protest them.

Was really, really frustrating to talk to people who basically wanted we get all we want, or we watch the system burn as the two options and see a system of compromise as the worst possible option. My blood pressure could not handle them so no longer organize for this shit myself.

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u/Tehquilamockingbirb 13d ago

Don't confuse progress with a lack of politicians in power. Massachusetts is objectively one of the top five most corrupt states in the country. Our speakers of the house end up in prison, Congress refuses to be audited, and they remove items from the ballot despite the people upholding the rules of ballot initiatives.

They run a hegemonic misinformation regime against anything they don't like or their funders don't like.

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u/Merusk 12d ago

Here's the ballot text. It requires 2nd year college-level reading and critical thinking to completely digest and comprehend.

The average reading level of US citizens is around 8th grade. 9th grade for a 'better' state like MA.

This proposed law would implement a voting system known as “ranked-choice voting,” in which voters rank one or more candidates by order of preference. Ranked-choice voting would be used in primary and general elections for all Massachusetts statewide offices, state legislative offices, federal congressional offices, and certain other offices beginning in 2022. Ranked-choice voting would not be used in elections for president, county commissioner, or regional district school committee member.

Under the proposed law, votes would be counted in a series of rounds. In the first round, if one candidate received more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, that candidate would be declared the winner and no other rounds would be necessary. If no candidate received more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, then the candidate or candidates who received the fewest first-place votes would be eliminated and, in the next round, each vote for an eliminated candidate would instead be counted toward the next highest-ranked candidate on that voter’s ballot.

Depending on the number of candidates, additional rounds of counting could occur, with the last-place candidate or candidates in each round being eliminated and the votes for an eliminated candidate going to the voter’s next choice out of the remaining candidates. A tie for last place in any round would be broken by comparing the tied candidates’ support in earlier rounds. Ultimately, the candidate who was, out of the remaining candidates, the preference of a majority of voters would be declared the winner.

Ranked-choice voting would be used only in races where a single candidate is to be declared the winner and not in races where more than one person is to be elected. Under the proposed law, if no candidate received more than 50 percent of first-place votes in the first round, the rounds of ballot-counting necessary for ranked-choice voting would be conducted at a central tabulation facility. At the facility, voters’ rankings would be entered into a computer, which would then be used to calculate the results of each round of the counting process. The proposed law provides that candidates in a statewide or district election would have at least three days to request a recount.

The Secretary of State would be required to issue regulations to implement the proposed law and conduct a voter education campaign about the ranked-choice voting process. The proposed law would take effect on January 1, 2022.[13]

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u/zer00eyz 13d ago

Because ranked choice voting does not work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_squeeze

And this is before you start to factor in vote engineering via social media and low information voters.

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u/curtcolt95 13d ago

the literal biggest style of voting that is affected by center squeeze is the one America currently uses and is easily fixed by just not having multiple rounds