Independents reign as the voting bloc for political candidates to deal with this election year, new data show. Gallup has found that 43% of US adults identified as independent in its survey, while 27% of respondents said they're Democrats or Republicans. That's a low for Democrats, Axios reports. There have been blips, but independents generally started to outnumber the ranks of the two parties in 1991. "The increase in the percentage of independents has come more at the expense of Democrats than Republicans, which might be expected since Democrats were previously the largest political group," Gallup's post says.
The percentage self-reporting as Democrats in the telephone survey of 12,000 people was a drop from the 30% of 2020. Democrats peaked at 36% in 1998 and 2008, per Forbes. The Republican share has changed little since 2008, staying between 25% and 29%. Independents have kept growing, hitting the 43% high, first reached in 2014, again last year after coming in at 41% the year before. This is the first time since 2005 that the same percentage has identified as Republican or Democrat. When party labels are put aside, the same shares say they're conservative as moderate—36%. Those who say they lean liberal account for 25% of Gallup's respondents. (More Gallup stories.)
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