Sanders Broke Debs’ 104 Year Old Record for Most Votes for a Socialist

Huffington Post
August 30, 2016

Unlike in Europe where socialist and communist parties have had sizeable voter support, historians have long noted and puzzled over their lack of electoral support in the United States, a part of the original meaning of the concept of American exceptionalism.

The highpoint of American socialist voting on a national level was the 1912 election, when Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party’s candidate, received 901,551 votes, 6% of the total. It was downhill from then on, that is, until 2016 when in the Democratic Party primary Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, received 13,168,222 votes, nearly fifteen times Debs’ total.

The comparison is of course not exact. The 2016 electorate is a lot larger than that of 1912 since the national population is a lot larger. But even in proportionate terms, Sanders broke Debs’ record. If the November percentage turnout of registered voters is the same as that of 2012, Sanders 13 million plus votes will represent 9.8% of that total, which is greater than Debs’ 6%. We can also assume that had Sanders beaten Clinton and gone on to be the party’s candidate those 13 million plus votes would have expanded greatly.

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