Update: the latest numbers show even stronger independent self-identification, at 46%, in polls taken from June 3-16, 2019.
As the midterm elections took up a lot of political oxygen in 2018, shifting winds benefited the Democrats as the monthly Gallup tracking poll of party affiliation showed Democratic gains and a drop in the percentage of independent voters.
Voter self-identification as Democrat peaked in the poll taken October 15-28, 2018, at 35%. For the first time since December, 2012, this was within a percentage point of the number of Americans identifying as politically independent, which bottomed out at 36%.
At the same time, independent voters came out in large numbers to vote in the midterms, comprising 30%, or 34 million, of the votes cast, according to IndependentVoting.org‘s Jacqueline Salit. This was a jump of 38% from the previous midterm election, compared to an increase of just 25% for Democratic and Republican voters.
What was their impact? Salit writes:
What did these unpredictable independents do? They broke for Democratic candidates by 12 points. In the last midterms they broke for Republicans by 12 points. In other words, there was a 24-point swing over four years’ time. The voters who elected Barack Obama in 2008, then took away the Democrat Congressional majority in 2010, backed the GOP and then Trump through 2016, changed the make-up of the federal government yet again. They also put a number of governorships in the blue column.
And what’s happening as the 23 or so Democratic presidential contenders for 2020 start taking up the political oxygen? The pendulum is swinging away from the partisans.
The plurality of voters identifying as independent is jarring. There are over 91 million political independents eligible to vote in the United States, compared to 56 million Republicans and 54 million Democrats.
What does this mean? In short, it means that despite tremendous diversity and divergence within those 91 million people, there is a surging population of pissed off people who are ripe for organizing to transform the political system. If the growing political reform movement can shift into higher gear, it might be possible to make the 2020 election a turning point for the rotten political system in the U.S.
Now might be the perfect time to declare our political independence.
What do YOU think?