Independent Does Not Mean Nonpartisan Or Non-Ideological

Almost from the moment on January 20, 2009 when Barack Obama placed his hand on a Bible and became America's 44th president, a major focus of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom is that independent voters, whom commentators from Matt Bai to Chuck Todd claim increasingly dominate the American electorate, are turning en masse against the president and his party.  These "angry independents," whose standard approach to the political process, according to pundits, is to hit the "reset button," are said to threaten the Democratic Party's congressional majority in this year's midterm elections and the Obama presidency itself just as they undermined George W. Bush and the Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

While this portrayal of the American electorate and the role of independents may be colorful and dramatic, it has almost no empirical basis. A February 2010 survey commissioned by NDN with a far larger than normal national sample of more than 2700 American adults paints a picture of an electorate that is, in fact, far more partisan-and Democratic-than the one the D.C. punditry describes almost daily.   

The problem is that most Washington observers and many pollsters, who should certainly know better, use a definition of voter party identification that is shallow and incomplete. They refer to only three discrete and presumably undifferentiated categories of voters-Democrats, Republicans, and independents. However, voting behavior analysts affiliated with the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, who first formulated the concept of party identification in the 1950s, recognized early on that those who identify with a particular political party do so with varying degrees of strength, while those who say they are independents may lean toward one or the other of the parties.

As a result, the Michigan researchers developed a seven-point scale to more fully capture the actual complexity of party identification. This scale consists of Strong Democrats on one extreme and Strong Republicans on the other. In between the two extremes are Weak Democrats, Independents who lean to the Democrats, Independents who lean to the Republicans and Weak Republicans. In the very center of the scale are Independents who do not lean to either party.

As the following table, drawn from the NDN February survey indicates, rather than being a large undifferentiated and unanchored mass in the middle of the electorate, almost two-thirds of those who call themselves independent lean to either the Democratic or Republican Party. This leaves no more than one in five American voters completely unattached to a party.

Strong Democrat                                18%

Not strong Democrat                          12%

Independent, lean Democrat              17%

Independent, not lean                       20%

Independent, lean Republican            13%

Not strong Republican                          8%

Strong Republican                              13%

This is more than a statistical quirk or a matter of only academic importance: independents who lean to one of the parties are far closer demographically, attitudinally, and behaviorally to those who identify outright with that party than they are to independents who lean to the opposite party or do not lean to either the Democrats or Republicans.

Demographics

As indicated in the table just below, the two sets of party identifiers and leaners are decisively different demographically. A majority of all three Democratic groups (Strong Democrats, Not strong Democrats, and Democratic-leaning independents) are female and drawn from the two youngest generations of voters: Millennials (18-28 years old) and Gen-Xers (29-45). In addition, upwards of one-fifth of the Democratic groups (and one-third of the Strong Democrats) is minority. By contrast, a majority of the three Republican ID groups are male and come from the two oldest generations-Baby Boomers (46-64 years old) and Silents (65+ years old). About nine in ten Republican identifiers and leaners are white and a disproportionately large share, especially Strong Republicans, reside in the South.

Self-perceived Ideology

Not only do the independents leaners look like those who identify outright with the two parties demographically, they also think like them. Within the more ideologically cohesive GOP, a majority of Strong Republicans (75%), Not strong Republicans (55%), and Republican-leaning independents (53%) perceive themselves as conservatives. Among Democrats, a majority of strong identifiers (55%) and a plurality of independents that lean to the party (41%) say they are liberals or progressives. In fact, the independent Democrats are significantly more likely to label themselves as liberals or progressives than are weakly-attached Democrats.

 Attitudes on Issues

These ideological preferences are clearly reflected in the positions on issues held by party identifiers and leaners. Independents who lean Democratic decisively favor activist government (74%) and policies designed to promote economic equality (72%). Independents who tilt to the GOP overwhelmingly prefer a laissez faire approach to economic and societal concerns (66%) and rugged individualism (73%). In fact, Democratic-leaning independents are more "liberal" and Republican-leaning independents are more "conservative" than those who identify only weakly with either party. This suggests that the attachments of the independent-leaners to the two parties are based on ideological beliefs more than on inherited or traditional ties.

Voting Behavior

 Ultimately, of course, the clearest indicator of partisanship is the party for which one votes and, by this measure, independents that lean to a party clearly pass the test. In 2008 upwards of eight in ten independent Democrats and independent Republicans voted for both the presidential and congressional candidates of the party to which they lean. In fact, those who lean to one or the other of the parties were no less likely to vote for those candidates than were weak identifiers.

At this early date, vote intentions in the 2010 congressional midterm elections are less clear.  More than a third of independent leaners and a quarter of weak identifiers say they have not yet decided how they will vote in November. Even so, a majority of independents that lean Democratic (56%) or Republican (55%) still expect to vote for the congressional candidate of the party to which they tilt. Only two-percent of each party's independent leaners expects to cross party lines. If past history is any indicator,  most of those who say their congressional vote is not yet determined, in the end, will vote for the congressional candidate of the party to which they now lean.

These numbers indicate that the biggest problem facing the Democrats in the 2010 elections is not that those who identify with or lean to the Democratic Party are about to desert it. Nor is it the possibility that non-leaning independents are going to vote overwhelmingly for GOP candidates. Neither of these outcomes appears likely. Rather the major concern for Democratic candidates is a relative lack of intensity among Democratic voters as compared with Republicans. All three Democratic subgroups (Strong Democrats, Not strong Democrats, and Democratic-leaning independents) are substantially less likely to be certain voters or to have great concern for the outcome of the 2010 voting than are their GOP counterparts.

What it all means

• The American electorate is highly partisan. In spite of inside-the-Beltway assertions to the contrary, independent voters do not dominate U.S. politics or determine the results of most elections. No more than a fifth of Americans are completely unattached to one of the two parties. At least 80-percent identify with or lean to the either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
• The large majority of independents are partisans in their attitudes and voting behavior. About two-thirds of independents say they lean to one or the other major parties. Independents who lean to a party vote overwhelmingly for the candidates of that party. They claim adherence to the ideology normally associated with the party to which they tilt-Democratic liberalism and Republican conservatism. And, their opinions on key issues reflect those ideological leanings. Democratic leaning independents favor governmental activism in the economy and support policies promoting economic equality. Republican leaning independents oppose those things.
• The minority of independents who are completely unattached to a party are the least politically informed segment of the electorate. Non-leaning independents are less likely to be registered voters. Those non-leaning independents that are registered show up at the polls less often than either partisan identifiers or leaners. They are also less likely to have opinions on issues than others segments of the population. It is probably not too much to say that most unaffiliated independents are nonpartisan simply because they are too uninformed or disinterested in politics to chose between the two parties.
• The American electorate tilts strongly Democratic. Overall, nearly half (47%) of the national electorate identify with or lean to the Democratic Party as opposed to a third (34%) who identify or lean Republican. The Democratic Party's decisive edge overall in party ID should give pause to easy acceptance of the memes that America is a "center-right" or even equally divided nation. Instead, the Democratic Party is in position to dominate U.S. elections and shape public policy for decades to come. Attempting to rally the support of an elusive-and small-bloc of unaffiliated independents will not accomplish that. Inspiring and enlisting Democrats will. President Obama's signing this week of the HIRE Act jobs bill and the likely passage of health care reform legislation this weekend are important first steps in rallying Democratic voters this fall and in the years to come.