Understanding the independent voter is the white whale of politics. Strategists in both parties spend inordinate amounts of time trying to grasp why these fence-sitters feel the way they feel — and what message makes them vote Democratic or Republican on Election Day.
How can independent voters who supported Democratic House candidates by 18 points in 2006 turn around and back Republicans running for the House by 19 points just four years later? And what does that movement tell us about where independents might end up in the 2014 midterms and, eventually, the 2016 presidential election?
Those are the questions Micah Roberts of the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies seeks to answer in a new memo that combines years of NBC-Wall Street Journal polling data on independents. [cont.]
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post