Earlier this week, Gallup announced that Americans are more politically independent than ever. But, like most survey findings, the fact that 42 percent of Americans now identify as independent is not as straightforward as it initially seems. Indeed, as John Sides pointed out, most Americans who identify as independent often act in a partisan fashion, even if they are not as partisans as the true believers.
So why are people telling surveys they are independent when, in fact, they often behave in a fashion more similar to partisans than to true independents? And – aside from giving pundits a chance to proclaim that Americans are “declaring independence” – does this have any real consequences for politics? We have spent the past year and a half trying to answer these very questions. CONT.
Yanna Krupnikov & Samara Klar, The Monkey Cage