Analysis: Americans like saying they’re independent — while voting as partisans
In fairness, that January-February 2021 figure was an outlier. Earlier in January, the percentage was 45 percent; by mid-February, it was 41 percent. But despite such unsurprising fluctuations in the figures, the percentage did mark a well-established pattern: Americans are more likely than they used to be to call themselves independents.By “well-established,” I mean that this pattern has been obvious for well over a decade.
But if we segment out the percentage of the population that is not registered with a political party but stillwith one of the parties — a group called leaning independents — we see that most of those who are politically independent still vote with one party or the other most of the time.I wrote about one of the reasons this happens: Most leaning independents don’t love the party they vote with but theyThis is called negative partisanship, and it’s potent.
Data from the American National Election Studies shows that self-reported independents who tend to vote with one party or the other account for a growing percentage of those voting in presidential. In the 1950s and 1960s, about 31 percent of independents casting presidential ballots were “true” independents. In the past five elections, about 23 percent were. This is likely in large part because the leaning-independent category is growing much more than the “true” independent one.
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