Independents Abandoning Trump

29%

G. Elliot Morris: “It’s hard to characterize just how bad 29% approval with independents is. You can explain the number in a couple of ways: First, 29% is somewhere between 11 and 17 percentage points lower than the president’s share of the vote with independents in the 2024 election (VoteCast says 40%, Edison says 46%). That means that roughly one out of every three political independents who voted for Trump in the 2024 election now says they disapprove of how he’s governing. … As it turns out, 29% among independents is also a record low for Trump, according to Gallup.”

Large Plurality of Americans Identify as Independent

42%

For the fifth consecutive year, at least four in 10 U.S. adults identified as political independents. “The 42% identifying as independents in 2015 was down slightly from the record 43% in 2014,” reports Gallup. “This elevated percentage of political independents leaves Democratic (29%) and Republican (26%) identification at or near recent low points, with the modest Democratic advantage roughly where it has been over the past five years.”

Most Professed Independents Really Aren’t

5%

Percentage of the 2012 electorate who were true independents, who don’t lean toward either party, according to the American National Election Studies survey, notes Charlie Cook. In 2012, the ANES survey “found that 87 percent of independents who, when pushed, conceded they feel closer to the Democratic Party wound up voting for Obama. The same percentage of independents who admitted a soft spot for Republicans went for Romney. In 2008, Obama’s hope-and-change campaign drew a whopping 91 percent of Democratic-leaning independents, while McCain won 82 percent of independents who leaned Republican. Simply put, many of the people who self-identify as political independents are, for electoral purposes, partisans. They vote almost as predictably as Americans who simply label themselves as a Democrat or a Republican.”