At the start of the midterm election year, Republican candidates hold a slim two-percentage point advantage when voters are asked about their preference for Congress. Forty-three percent of voters would back the Republican in their House district if the election were held today, while 41 percent would vote for the […] Read more »
Messages that Appeal to the Center of the Electorate in 2014
Since President Obama took office, Resurgent Republic has closely followed the opinions and intensity of Independent voters. The center of the electorate first stepped away from President Obama during the summer of 2009 due to concerns over the amount of federal spending in the stimulus and budget. Since then the […] Read more »
As independent voters’ numbers rise, GOP hurt most
Fed up with the Democrats and Republicans who run Washington, growing numbers of people are calling themselves independents. The Republican Party stands to suffer the most from the movement away from staunch party loyalty, but Democrats also are affected. “This says both parties are dealing with wounded brands,” said Lee […] Read more »
Independents Will Decide The 2014 Elections
Among political urban legends, one of the more persistent is “base elections”—the notion that successful campaigns can rely simply on turning out a party’s hard-core supporters. Nonsense. The party that wins independents wins Congress. Energizing core supporters is necessary but insufficient. CONT. Karl Rove Read more »
The Myth of the Independent Voter
For years, conventional wisdom has held that as independent voters go, so goes an election. Win these coveted swing voters – the moderate middle – and you win the election. Recent high profile elections, however, have undermined this long-held aphorism. Romney carried independent voters and lost both the popular vote […] Read more »
Why people call themselves ‘independent’ even when they aren’t
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 […] Read more »