The older poor are not so easily convinced to be socialist

Sanders makes the same assumptions in the US as Labour did in Britain - but in both countries the electorate is complex

Bernie Sanders is on his way to victory in the race for the Democratic party nomination. There are plenty of trip hazards along the route to challenging Donald Trump in November, and Sanders will need to joust with the billionaire Michael Bloomberg after he finally shows up in the Super Tuesday primary on 3 March, when about a third of all delegates will be allocated from the votes of 14 states.

Yet Sanders's radical programme looks like it will excite enough party members to secure the Democrat nomination in a field of candidates where the more moderate wing, while larger in vote share, is badly split between Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden and Bloomberg, and where his leftist challengers - among them Elizabeth Warren - have fallen away.

Averages disguise how unevenly wealth is distributed across the age groups as much as they show class divides

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