A durable finding from political science research is that people who self-identify as “Independent” but who admit to leaning towards one party or the other in a follow up question behave very similarly to their partisan counterparts. Increasingly, research is treating these Independent “leaners” as soft partisans and distinguishing “pure” Independents from them. This is important because Independent “leaners” account for the majority of people who fall into the Independent category and including leaners in the Independent category may create a distorted picture of how fluid the American electorate really is. CONT. – pdf
Wason Center for Public Policy, Christopher Newport U.
