Millennial Democratics prefer Bernie Sanders

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Young Democrats are gravitating toward Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described democratic socialist, a new poll indicates.

Sanders' appeal among millennial progressives -- between the ages of 18 and 29 -- can be attributed to his democratic socialism, according to a new poll by the Harvard University Institute of Politics. Twenty-four percent said they were more likely to vote for him because of it, while 9 percent found it to be a deterrent. Sixty-six percent said it made no difference to them.

Forty-one percent of voters who give themselves a 50/50 chance of voting in the Democratic primary say they would choose Sanders to be the next president of the United States. That's a sharp rise from the 1 percent who preferred him when the poll was taken earlier this year. Around that time, 47 percent said they would vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, however this time around that number has dropped slightly to 35 percent. Less than 1 percent chose former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

More than half of the respondents who support Sanders are in college, while 19 percent of college students polled support Clinton.

Among conservative respondents, Donald Trump won out with 22 percent, followed closely by Ben Carson with 20 percent. The poll was conducted in late October, before Carson's drop in national polls and Trump's controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

The poll was conducted between Oct. 30 and Nov. 9, and surveyed 2,000 people between the ages of 18 and 29 with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.