From today's Post.
The Poll Watchers
How Independent Are Independents?
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 2, 2002; 11:00 AM
Also in This Column:
• Public Rejects Cutting Federal Aid to Amtrak
• Florida State Troopers Help Pollsters
• Poll Vault: Remembering the Hippies and the Summer of Love
They're celebrated by pundits and political reporters as the real swingers of American politics: Political independents who don't identify with either political party and remain up for grabs in every election.
But just how independent are these so-called political independents? As it turns out, not very, according to recent surveys by The Washington Post.
The overwhelming majority of independents do favor one party or the other. And even more importantly, they are largely indistinguishable in terms of their core political beliefs and policy preferences from Americans who readily identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats.
"You scratch independent leaners and you will find closet partisans," says political scientist David Magleby, a dean at Brigham Young University who has done research on the topic. "They in every behavioral way are as partisan as the weak partisans."
For many Americans, calling themselves independent is about words, not politics.
"One of the reasons people resonate to the term 'independent' is because of their hostility to parties and institutions," Magleby said. "They want to be more neutral and they don't want to be tainted by a negative term that makes it seem you are captured by a party."
His advice to candidates looking to entice that tiny fraction of the electorate that are true political independents: don't waste your time or money.
"I would encourage candidates not to play to them. Because they tend to jump on bandwagons, to follow tides. . . . You're better off to work on getting your weak partisans and your leaners," the true independents will likely follow.
At first glance, independents seem to be a real political force. In a Post-ABC News poll conducted in mid-July, 32 percent of those sampled identify themselves as Democrats, 33 percent as Republicans and 31 percent as independents.
But when asked which party they lean toward, the proportion of true independents plummets from 31 percent to 6 percent. The rest of those independents scurry to one party or the other, with about half saying they lean toward the GOP and the other half tilting toward the Democrats.
Well, maybe forcing those leaners to choose sides is unfair. Perhaps they're very different from party faithful in politically meaningful ways. Actually, they're not. At least not much, on many key issues.
Take the 2002 generic congressional ballot in the July Washington Post-ABC News poll. A neat 90 percent of Democrats say if the election was held today they would vote for the Democratic candidate. On the GOP side, 94 percent plan to support the Republican candidate. Look at independents as a group, they seem much more conflicted: 51 percent go for the Democrats, 33 percent for the GOP.
But look what happens when you break the group down into Democratic leaners, Republican leaners, and pure independents.
Nearly nine in ten (85 percent) of the Democratic leaning "independents" say they would vote for the Democrat. Nearly seven in ten (68 percent) of Republican leaning "independents" would vote for the GOP candidate, different than other Republicans but still a lop-sided majority.
And the stalwart 6 percent who are true independents? They do split – about a third for each party and another third who don't know or say they won't vote.
This same pattern held on a host of issues in Post surveys conducted over the past year with ABC, as well as with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. Leaners looked like partisans on questions measuring attitudes toward the size of government, the federal government's role in helping minorities, vouchers and abortion.
There are some differences. Leaned Democrats are somewhat more favorable toward Social Security privatization than are straight-out Democrats, and somewhat less favorable to affirmative action programs. Leaned Republicans are more accepting of gay marriage, and somewhat less enthusiastic about President Bush.
But who are these hard-core independents left in the pool after the Democratic and Republican leaners scurry off to their partisan homes?
Magleby believes that there are some independents who embody the platonic ideal: open-minded, well-educated, connected to the world of politics and policy. Then there are some who are just clueless.
"Pure independents are very different than independent leaners," Magleby said. "Pure independents do march to their own beat. They are volatile. They have the lowest rates of turnout." |
