Late to the Party

Political independents have further cemented their standing as the dominant voting bloc in America ahead of the 2024 election, new Gallup data showed.
Independent voters dominate U.S. while Dems slip to record low: Gallup

Ah, yes. The fabled "independent voter." Who is mostly a figment of the imagination.

As open partisanship has pulled the perceptions of the Democrats and the Republicans towards their activist bases, being "independent," "non-partisan," "moderate" or what-have-you has become a more popular identifier among the American public. But most political analysts would note that many, if not all, of the self-identified independents, have distinctly partisan preferences, and therefore, voting patterns. They just don't want to openly associate themselves with the two primary political parties.

Because there are other parties in the United States. And it's a safe bet (although an absolute lock might be a better way of putting it) that between them, the "third parties" of the American political landscape will not receive a plurality of the votes. 43% of Americans might say that they're Independent, but it's generally a surprise when independent political parties (like the Green Party, Libertarians or the Socialists, to name a few) together manage to break into the double digits in terms of vote share.

And I understand the impulse to not associate with the big two political parties. I tend to describe myself as "not Republican." Which, for many people, is simply a roundabout way of saying "Democrat." To be sure, I tend to have somewhat "idiosyncratic" policy preferences. I'm what many people would call fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. And I'm not a national security hawk. For many people, that places me in the Democratic camp. But personally, I'm not really a fan of the sort of interventionist policies that Democrats tend to favor. On the other hand, most of the politicians that I have positive opinions of tend to be Democrats. So... am I a Democrat? Since I live in Washington State, I don't have to be; we don't have to declare partisan affiliations for primary elections. And I do vote third party as often as I can find someone who's not either completely crazy or obviously running a message campaign. But not because I ever expect any of them to win; it's more that I think that if third-party candidates can manage to pull down a decent number of votes, we'll start having more choices. But  suspect that anyone who looked at my voting record (assuming they could, with secret ballots and all that) would presume that I'm a consistent Democrat who was willing to vote third party once in a while. Especially recently, as most Republican candidates for local and statewide offices are acolytes of Donald Trump; with all of the baggage that entails. But I don't identify as a Democrat. But all that really means is that I don't vote for them simply out of partisanship.

The politics of the United States may come off as simple-minded at times, but it's more complicated than having only two viable political parties in most of the country can account for. Given that there are only two, however, the number of Americans who aren't effectively affiliated with one or the other of them is pretty small. Much smaller than 43%. The high number of people who tell pollsters that they're "Independent" isn't a measure of their politics. It's a sign of how poorly the parties are viewed by much of the country.