A Gallup survey released in January showed the number of independent voters is at a near-historic high. While an even 28 percent of America’s voters identify as either Republican or Democrat, 41 percent now identify as independent. While ongoing Gallup surveys show that independents have averaged 42 percent over the past year, Gallup’s number for September showed that 46 percent of Americans consider themselves to be independent.
According to Gallup, no less than 39 percent of Americans have identified as independent since 2011.
“We are on pace to have the highest percentage of independents in a year—43.8 percent through September,” he said.
However, as previous Gallup surveys suggest, he also predicted that the percentage of registered independents will most likely decline as we head into the 2024 presidential election season.
“Most recently, in 2020, the percentage of independents dropped to 39 percent from 41 percent in 2019,” he said.
‘Will It Be a Three-Way Race?’
Jessica Anderson attributes the affiliation migration to the degradation of both the Democrat and Republican parties over the last 30 years.
“Let’s start with the Democrat Party and what they believe in,” Ms. Anderson told The Epoch Times, citing its advocation for open borders and illegal immigration, its alliance with China on internet censorship, its calls for defunding the police, its promotion of transgender ideology in schools, its endorsement of often violent Black Lives Matter protests, and its support of late-term abortion and denying medical treatment to “born alive” babies who survive an attempted abortion.
“Even 15 years ago, most of those beliefs would have been considered extreme,” she said, suggesting the Party’s radical shift to the left has left “common sense Democrat voters behind.”
In the meantime, she suggested that conservatives are leaving the Republican Party because its traditional focus on fiscal responsibility has become lost in the battles of personality and a struggle for control of the GOP between the likes of former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and former President Donald Trump.
As for whether or not the rising tide of independents will grow remains to be seen.
“The best test case of this is going to be [Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.] if he can get some traction,” she predicted. “He’s unique. He pulls from the anti-vax crowd on the right and some of the more traditional Democrats of 30 years ago on the left. No one else has been able to do that. It’s never happened. It will be very interesting to talk about this next year if he’s still in the race. Will it be a three-way race? Or have the RFK supporters translated over to the Republican side because they see it as the most common-sense alternative from a national standpoint?”
Independents, she said, could well be branded as “the common sense bucket.”
The Power of the Independent Voter
The survey focused on voters in the seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
On a ballot that includes third-party candidates, former President Donald Trump leads Mr. Biden among all voters surveyed by four percentage points.
However, among independent voters, who many believe will determine who wins the seven swing states in 2024, Mr. Biden trails Mr. Trump by 10 points.
In a head-to-head matchup between just Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden is still 8 points behind Mr. Trump among independents.
Reuters/Ipsos polling from August 2018 also showed that “Republicans won the independent vote by 7 percentage points in 2016,” calling it a “difference maker.”
Their influence was also felt in the 2022 midterms.Americans Want More Options
A survey released Oct. 19 by Pew Research Center showed that voters under the age of 50 are more open to adding more political party options than those who have lived more than five decades.Nearly 50 percent of Gen Z voters, aged 18–29, are open to having additional political party options. Similarly, 46 percent of those between 30 and 49 say the same. However, among Americans between the ages of 50 and 64, just 21 percent are amenable to more political parties and even less of those over the age of 65 are open to the idea, 21 percent.
While 44 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are open to additional political parties, only 32 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents share the same sentiment.
Younger Americans are also more inclined than older Americans to believe that adding more parties would make it easier to solve the country’s problems.
While 39 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 believe more political parties would make problem-solving easier, only 12 percent of those over 65 share their opinion.
Democratic-leaning independents (44 percent) are also more likely than Republican-leaning independents (29 percent) to believe that adding more political parties will help solve problems.
However, the vast majority of Americans are doubtful that an independent candidate could actually win a presidential election in the next 25 years.
Only a third of Americans say it’s even somewhat likely that an independent candidate could win the presidency, including a slim 7 percent who say it’s very likely.
‘Tired of the Environment of Fear’
In 2023, Ballotpedia reports that at least 10 politicians have switched party affiliations.
Vermont State Rep. Jarrod Sammis, who left the GOP to become a Libertarian, shared his thoughts on why so many Americans are now identifying as independents.
“Unfortunately, with the two major Parties, they weaponize the government against people they disagree with, which I ethically don’t agree with,” he told The Epoch Times. “The two-party system right now is like dealing with two parents who are in the middle of a divorce and they’re both trying get custody of the kids, and the kids are starting to realize that both of the parents have issues.”
Mr. Sammis said Americans have been stuck in a two-party game, which he calls “Pendulum Politics,” for decades.
Something happens that emotionally motivates people to take sides with whoever says they will fix the problem in the way they want it fixed. But each time the problem isn’t fixed the pendulum swings back the other way and each time it happens it goes a little further each way.
“Where most people used to say, ‘vote red regardless of who’s running or vote blue regardless of who’s running, people are starting to realize they have to view things in a more complex manner, especially after the things that happened in the 2016 election and the 2020 election,” he proposed. “They got tired of the environment of fear that people were living in all the time and there didn’t seem to be a solution no matter who they elected. So when you keep getting the same results no matter if you vote for a Republican or a Democrat, you end up realizing it’s time to start exploring something different.”‘Tired of the Hyper-Partisanship’
Georgia State Rep. Mesha Mainor left the Democrat Party to become a Republican. She also shared her thoughts on the rise of the independent voter.
“I was a moderate as a Democrat and I am still a moderate as a Republican,” she told The Epoch Times. “The people who care about getting things done are moderates.”
“They are the workhorses,” she said of independents. “They aren’t motivated by emotion. They are motivated by actual policy. In the state we are in, people are tired of the hyper-partisanship.”
She recalled a conversation she had with a constituent earlier in the day, a physician who is an independent and lives in the suburbs.
The woman, who voted for Trump twice, expressed reservations about voting for him in 2024. At the same time, she won’t vote for Mr. Biden because she doesn’t believe he’s equipped mentally for the job.
“The reason she’s hesitant to support Mr. Trump is because the far right wing of the Republican Party is putting the party at a stand-still rather than moving the party forward,” Ms. Mainer recalled of the conversation. “It isn’t Mr. Trump who lost her support but rather the hyper-partisan Republican Party that comes with him.”
