New Pew Research study: "Independent Voters" are way overhyped as an electorate.

[DetlefK]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/30/1861458/-Pew-confirms-it-there-s-no-real-such-thing-as-an-independent-voter

Yes, there are people who call themselves independent. They are the tea party conservatives, too cool to be Republicans, yet always pulling the lever for the GOP. There are the Bernie-type liberals, also too cool and pure to sully themselves by belonging to a party, yet when it comes time to vote, they wouldn’t vote for a Republican to save their lives.

And yes, there are “independents” who, generally, are too apathetic to care enough to realize that there are real differences between the two parties, and might swing. But that kind of person is also very likely to, you know, not vote at all.

And while this all sounds anecdotal, it’s not. It’s in the findings of the latest Pew Research study on so-called independents.

Top line? Only 7% of Americans are true independents—individuals who genuinely don’t lean toward either of the two major parties. And of those? Only 33% voted in 2018!

[Downtown Hound]

1. I had a former friend try and justify his support of Trump by saying that he was an independent

I laughed in his face. I asked him when had he never not voted Republican. He had no answer. Most so-called independents are phonies. They're too chickenshit to stand by what hey believe so they pretend to be above it all, when they are about the furthest thing from.

[DetlefK]

4. The Tea Partiers insisted they were a non-partisan movement.

Yet there were no democratic Tea Partiers and no Tea Partier ever supported a Democrat.

[zipplewrath]

2. Which means they can turn elections

Elections can turn on single digit margins, so even if the "true" independents are only 2% of the voters, they can turn an election.

[empedocles]

3. Whatever we call the groups in the middle 60%, they are important!

[FakeNoose]

5. I was independent for a lot of years until 2008

... but I always voted for a Democrat every time. I grew up in a proud Republican family in the Midwest during the 50s and 60s. I was definitely a liberal, anti-war and anti-Nixon. However I never joined for Democratic Party for many years. It wasn't until Hillary ran in 2008 and I truly wanted to vote for her in the primary - that I finally joined the Democratic Party. Glad I did and I've never looked back.

For many years I believed the Republican Party might sometime have a candidate (someone like Dwight Eisenhower) that I would maybe want to vote for. They never did, and I never voted for any GOP candidate. If Nelson Rockefeller had lived to run for President, I might have voted for him, but he died young and didn't have the chance. Long story short, there were a lot of us Baby Boomers who for one reason or another didn't join the Dems, but almost always voted for Dems anyway. I think Pew Research is all wrong about this.

[DetlefK]

6. Funny enough, some people compared Obama to Eisenhower.

The shift of the GOP towards nationalism, authoritarianism and jingoism is really remarkable. They have little in common with the GOP of 100 years ago.

[FakeNoose]

7. Yes the GOP of the 1950's doesn't in any way resemble the monstrosity

... we have now. Thank God my parents and grandparents never lived to see this. There used to be a few good, well-meaning patriots in the Repuke Party, but not any more and never again.

In my heart I've always been a Democrat.

[struggle4progress]

8. 33% of 7% 2.33%. 2016 results: Donnie 46.1 %, Hillary 48.2%