A couple of facts regarding the upcoming election aren’t getting much attention. Yes, these are facts – not perceptions but honest-to-goodness certainty or, if you will, the naked truth. This cogent information revolves around independents, as they are the fulcrum on which the election will pivot. Are they really that important? In a word, yes.
Independents Rising
According to a 2023 Gallup poll, 43% of the American electorate self-identify as independent voters. This number has grown over the years and is now larger than both major political parties: each taps out roughly the same, around 27%. Gallup went a bit further and asked if these independents leaned Democratic or Republican. After tracking this since 1992, the pollster found that, for most of the time, independents leaned blue. However, in 2022, that began to change, and now Gallup gives the Republicans a 45% to 43% edge over the Democrats. But this is a mere blip on the screen compared to another survey.
When digging deeper into the political leanings of the independent voter, a separate study unearthed some relevant information regarding what this part of the electorate believes. A recent article in Issues & Insights highlighted a survey conducted by Populace, a non-partisan think tank, which homed in on something called the Social Pressure Index (SPI). It was a large study comprising more than 19,000 people, and it asked a lot of questions. But they weren’t the usual polling queries such as “Whom would you vote for?” Instead, “It estimates the gap between Americans’ privately held beliefs and their publicly stated opinions.” […]
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