Political Science The Partisans in the Closet Political independents are (mostly) a figment of your imagination.

Alan I. Abramowitz is Alben W. Barkley professor of political science at Emory University. Follow him on Twitter at @AlanIAbramowitz.

According to the latest Gallup Poll, last year a record 42 percent of Americans considered themselves political independents. That’s the largest percentage of independents Gallup has recorded since the polling firm began doing interviews by telephone 25 years ago. Moreover, the percentage of independents rose to 46 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Based on these results, Gallup’s managing editor, Jeffrey Jones, concludes that the increase in independent identification “adds a greater level of unpredictability to this year’s congressional midterm elections.” Jones goes on to argue that, “with Americans increasingly eschewing party labels for themselves, candidates who are less closely aligned to their party or its prevailing doctrine may benefit.”


Don’t count on it. Despite Gallup’s findings, you won’t see a large number of successful independent candidates next November, nor will many Democratic or Republican candidates distance themselves from their own party on major issues. That’s because, despite the apparent rise in independent identification, Americans are actually becoming more rather than less partisan in their behavior. Yes, even “independents.”

There are good reasons to be skeptical about Gallup’s claims of declining partisanship in the American electorate. For one thing, other national polls have not found an exceptionally high percentage of independent identifiers in recent months. In fact, according to the Huffington Post Pollster website, the average percentage of independent identifiers was substantially higher in late 2011 and early 2012 than it is today. And we know what happened in November of 2012—the most partisan election in modern times, with record levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting (for reams of evidence, see The Gamble, the excellent new book on the 2012 election by political scientists John Sides and Lynn Vavreck).

Another major problem with Jones’s claims is the well-known fact that, when pressed, the vast majority of Americans who initially identify themselves as political independents acknowledge that they lean toward one party or the other. Almost three-fourths of independents surveyed by Gallup during 2013 indicated that they leaned toward one of the two major parties.

Why so many independents, then? Millions of Americans today are attracted to the independent label. Parties have a bad reputation—both major parties are viewed unfavorably by a majority of Americans—and there’s something appealing about the idea of thinking independently rather than blindly supporting a party. But in fact, the large majority of independents are “closet partisans” who consistently support only one party’s candidates. They call themselves independents and many of them register as independents when given an opportunity, but they vote like partisans. That was certainly true in the last election cycle.

According to data from the 2012 American National Election Study, the most prestigious academic survey of the American electorate, 87 percent of independent Democrats (i.e., independents who lean Democratic) voted for Barack Obama while 86 percent of independent Republicans voted for Mitt Romney. Moreover, 78 percent of independent Democrats voted a straight ticket for president, House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, as did 72 percent of independent Republicans. Independent Democrats were actually slightly more likely to vote a straight Democratic ticket than weak Democratic identifiers, and independent Republicans were only slightly less likely to vote a straight Republican ticket than weak Republican identifiers.

The main reason for the record levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting in 2012 is that voters’ policy preferences are now closely aligned with their party identification; Democrats generally support stronger government regulation of economic activity, abortion rights and same-sex marriage while Republicans generally oppose government regulation of economic activity, legalized abortion (except in rare cases) and same-sex marriage. And that is true for independent leaners as well as for regular party identifiers. Independent Democrats are much more liberal than independent Republicans on almost all major issues. In fact, these two types of independents share little in common other than the label.

Gallup’s claim about “a greater level of unpredictability” in the 2014 midterm elections is simply implausible. The exact number of seats that each party will gain or lose next fall is somewhat unpredictable at this point—but that is always true this early in an election year. Nevertheless, we can already predict with a high degree of confidence that in November, the vast majority of voters, including the vast majority of independent leaners, will cast their ballots along party lines and that, as a result, the vast majority of House districts and states will support the same party as in 2012.