December 23, 2011 10:47 PM UTC

The Myth of the Independent Voter

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• by: rdawkins22

(Interesting question in a state where Independents/Unaffiliateds can swing any election… – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)

Richard Wolf at USA Today reported today that the number of Independent voters have declined precipitously since 2008. Examining the registration statistics from 28 states, Wolf writes that voters are leaving the two major parties in ‘droves.’  

He goes on to suggest that:

The pattern continues a decades-long trend that has seen a diminution in the power of political parties, giving rise to independents as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader and the popularity this year of libertarian Republican Ron Paul.

Wolf goes on to suggest that this trend could impact the 2012 Presidential election in key swing states like Colorado. Contrary to Wolf’s assertion, however, there is little evidence for a decline in either of the two major parties.  

The problem with Wolf’s argument is that the increased number of Independents does not necessarily lead to his conclusions.  Indeed, the implicit assumption that most people hold about Independents is that they are unaffected by party ID, which political scientists have long agreed is the core consideration for understanding American voting behavior. That assumption, however, is far from true.

In their important book, The Myth of the Independent Voter,  Bruce E. Keith et al. argue that far from being unaffected by party ID, the vast majority of Independent voters are actually closet partisans.  By examining polling data gathered by the University of Michigan as part of the American National Election Studies since 1952, they find that even though there has been a remarkable increase in the proportion of Independent voters, most still lean toward one party or the other, so much so that they function essentially like partisans.  The number of true Independents, the authors argue, have remained relatively constant throughout the post-World War II period.  

Of course, it is impossible for Wolf to know if there has been an increase in true Independent voters or just closet partisans simply by looking at registration statistics. Polling data would be needed to make that kind of conclusion for his newspaper report. Nevertheless, this oversight does diminish the importance of the ‘trend’ identified by Wolf.  In fact, the increased polarization of the electorate as well as the ideological “sorting-out” that made conservative almost synonymous with Republican has, if anything, strengthened the influence of political parties and call into question what political scientists call ‘the decline of party thesis.’  

It is unlikely, in other words,  that the decline in major party registration will have any significant impact on the stability of the two party system in general, let alone the 2012 Presidential election.