WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Almost half of U.S. millennial Democrats say they identify as a socialist or democratic socialist, showed a new poll released on Friday.

About 48 percent said they would call themselves a democratic socialist or socialist, compared to 39 percent who said they identify as neither, showed the poll from BuzzFeed News and Maru/Blue.

Among Republican millennials, 23 percent said they would classify themselves a democratic socialist or socialist, while 71 percent say neither, revealed the poll which ran on Sept. 21-24 and surveyed people aged between 22 and 37.

Millennial men were much more likely than women to call themselves a socialist or democratic socialist, with 39 percent of all men say they would identify that way compared to 22 percent of all women, it showed.

The poll found nearly twice as many U.S. millennials said they at least leaned toward Democrats instead of Republicans, 48 to 25 percent.

Nineteen percent of those surveyed identified as independent.

The Democratic Socialists of America reported record-high membership during Democratic Party's primary earlier this year, according to a The Hill news daily report on Thursday.

The poll surveyed 1,006 randomly selected respondents online. The results have a margin of error of 3 percentage points.