Despite pressure from party establishment on Sanders to drop out of the race, most Democratic voters want the senator to keep running

By Nika Knight / CommonDreams

A new poll released Wednesday found that a majority of registered Democrats want presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to stay in the race.

The national survey of 2,001 voters by Morning Consult found that 57 percent of all Democrats polled want Sanders to keep running, while 33 percent want him to drop out. Ten percent have no opinion.

The findings contradict the pressure from prominent Democratic politicians and centrist pundits on Sanders to drop out of the presidential race—some of whom even argue that he’s already lost—despite the fact that several states (including delegate-rich California) and U.S. territories have yet to hold their primaries. (Polls also show Sanders and Clinton in a dead heat in California, which votes on June 7.)

The survey also found that a greater share of women registered as Democrats want Sanders to stay in the race than do Democratic men, directly contradicting another popular media narrative that posits that Sanders’ support comes largely from men, while rival Hillary Clinton supposedly wins more support from women.

Fifty-seven percent of voters of all political stripes also told the pollsters that they want Sanders to stay in the race, while 28 percent think he should drop out. A whopping 64 percent of respondents under 25 believe Sanders should keep running, in keeping with Sanders’ popularity with young people.

The poll found Democratic voters preferring Clinton over Sanders by a slim margin of four points. The survey had a two-point margin of error.

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