The Independent View: 42% of Americans Identify as Independents

On January 8, 2014 Gallup reported Forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2013, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago.

Meanwhile, Republican identification fell to 25%, the lowest over that time span. at 31%, Democratic identification is unchanged from the last four years but down from 36% in 2008.

The results are based on more than 18,000 interviews with Americans from 13 separate Gallup multiple-day polls conducted in 2013.

In each of the last three years, at least 40% of Americans have identified as independents. These are also the only years in Gallup's records that the percentage of independents has reached that level.

Implications

Americans are increasingly declaring independence from the political parties. It is not uncommon for the percentage of independents to rise in a non-election year, as 2013 was. Still, the general trend in recent years, including the 2012 election year, has been toward greater percentages of Americans identifying with neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party, although most still admit to leaning toward one of the parties.

The rise in political independence is likely an outgrowth of Americans' record or near-record negative views of the two major U.S. parties, of Congress, and their low level of trust in government more generally.

The increased independence adds a greater level of unpredictability to this year's congressional midterm elections. Because U.S. voters are less anchored to the parties than ever before, it's not clear what kind of appeals may be most effective to winning votes. But with Americans increasingly eschewing party labels for themselves, candidates who are less closely aligned to their party or its prevailing doctrine may benefit.

I have been writing for a long time that, in my opinion, the voters who take part in the political process are voting for candidates not parties.

But for those that have registered as No Party Preference, Blank, or all the other designations on voter registration forms, may have taken themselves out of the candidate selection process even though their taxes pay for that process.

So as some states are moving towards Open Primary systems, I prefer a Blanket Primary, is there other options?

Maybe states should allow this group of voters have their own ballot line and put all the candidates on it. This would work in New York were we use Fusion voting.

During the 2013 election for New York City mayor, 1,102,400 voted out of 4,275,813 active voters or 25.78%. Bill de Blasio won with 797,679 votes or 72.38%. But this means 3,173,413 active voters did not vote in 2013. With these numbers, it is hard for the new mayor to say he has a mandate.

Whatever new primary system a state adopts, election of party officials and local county members should be on a separate primary ballot then local, state or federal ballots.

How would you open primary voting to all registered voters?