To get a sense of just how powerful the moderate majority could be, one need only look at its size. As of early 2018, 45% of Americans self-identified as independents, as compared to 28% Republican and 27% Democrat. And the trend line is driving up — in late 2004 a mere 27–29% of Americans self-identified as independents, meaning there has been a more than 50% increase in the number of self-identifying independents.¹ Although party-affiliation isn’t a strict measure of moderate political ideology, independents are more likely to identify as moderates (43%) than their Republican (25%) and Democrat (35%) counterparts. Ignoring party affiliation, fully 35% of Americans consider themselves politically moderate.² This is a potentially huge voting block — as large, or larger, than the extremes.

Party affiliation and self-professed ideology are important markers in the conversation about how most Americans want the country to be run. At a minimum, these numbers indicate that a plurality of Americans are so disenchanted with the two major parties, which are increasingly viewed as catering to the extremes, that they choose instead to self-identify as independents. And no wonder — the extremists have seized the attention of our political leaders, and the national conversation with it.

Given the quirks of our primary system, it’s logical that a political candidate competing for the nomination of one of the major parties should play to the extremes. According to a 2014 Pew Research study, only 18% of individuals who were found to have a “mixed” (that is, moderate) political ideology said that they “always vote in primaries”. Compare that with 34% of individuals who were “consistently liberal” and 54% of those who were “consistently conservative”. Those are relatively small overall numbers, but they show a clear slant to the extremes. More worrying, the same pattern holds at the general election level, with only 39% of those with a “mixed” ideology saying that they “always vote”, as compared to 58% of those who are “consistently liberal” and 78% of those who are “consistently conservative”.³

It’s tempting to look past these numbers in consideration of the fact that primaries are ostensibly intended for a party’s members to choose their nominees. However, in many cases the primary elections essentially are the general elections. A 2016 Brookings study described the drastic reduction in competitive congressional races, with those judged to be “swing seats” dropping from 164 in 1998 down to just 90 in 2014 (out of 435 total seats).⁴ As a result, once a given candidate has a major party’s nomination, barely 20% of them need to concern themselves with the threat of a competitive general election. Not to mention the fact that overall turnout in primaries is low (28.5% in the 2016 Republican and Democrat primary elections)⁵, meaning that a minority of eligible voters are choosing candidates for everyone else.

The primaries wouldn’t be a problem if the voters in them accurately reflected the will of the populace as a whole, but they simply don’t. The same Brookings study, using exit polls from 2016 congressional primaries, found primary voters to have greater indicators of partisanship and ideology than the general population. Brookings further concluded that primary candidates know that likely primary voters are more extreme. It’s no leap to see why candidates who adopt more extreme positions have a higher chance of primary success, and why those candidates feel motivated to do so. And without a competitive general election to drive them back to the center, it’s more effective for these candidates to simply stick with their extreme positions.

The problem of our political system driving to extremes isn’t just evident in the oversized influence of primary voters, it can also be seen in public attitudes about the direction of our republic. In a 2017 Gallup poll, 71% of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the way the United States is governed.⁶ And that isn’t surprising, given that the system appears built to favor the extremes despite most Americans having more moderate views. Another 2017 Gallup poll found 54% of Americans in favor of compromise by leaders in Washington (vs. 28% neutral on the question and 18% preferring leaders “stick to their beliefs”.)⁷ Even broken down by ideological categorization (“very liberal”, “liberal”, “moderate”, “conservative”, “very conservative”), the preference for compromise won out in every category except for “very conservative”, which favored “stick to beliefs.” But looking at Congress of late, it’s hard to find many examples of compromise.