ABC's Sara Haines Calls Out 'Narrow View' that Independent Voters Can't Exist in Trump Era

An electric sign of the American flag.
Photo by Nelson Ndongala on Unsplash
Published: 06 Jun, 2025
Updated: 18 Jun, 2025
3 min read

NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. - American journalist and co-host of ABC’s The View, Sara Haines, refutes the notion that people can't be independent-minded in their election choices in an era in which the Republican Party is controlled by Trump – a perspective voiced by her colleague, Sunny Houstin that Haines describes as “narrow.”

The conversation started with the topic of Karine Jean-Pierre and her decision to leave the Democratic Party after serving as former President Joe Biden’s press secretary. Jean-Pierre is slated to release a book talking about being an independent in the Biden White House.

LISTEN: The Independent Voter Podcast Debuts — What Drives People to Take on a Broken System?

Haines called her decision a “more honest political take.”

“I think it’s time for politicians to sell themselves completely to someone consuming what they have to offer and not worrying about jersey-wearing partisan politics and tribalism,” she remarked on air.

Joy Behar wondered if Jean-Pierre’s decision meant she was willing to vote Republican, but Haines pushed back, saying Behar was “simplifying” things.

The common media narrative automatically equates a person leaving a party with switching parties, because the US exists within a system manufactured to put every conversation in terms of “Democrat versus Republican” and “us versus them.”

Haines noted that this is not about picking a party. It is about making conscious decisions based on the individual. This is in line with IVN’s stance on what it means to be an independent-minded voter and candidate.

To simply ask, does this mean Jean-Pierre will vote Republican misses the point of what being an independent actually means.

“Usually, an independent leans one way. I have voted left for 25 years but I don’t identify as Democrat because the Democrats don’t stand for everything [I stand for],” Haines explained. “I wait to see the candidates. And if the Republicans ever put up a candidate that I was like, ‘That’s my person,’ in a heartbeat, I would vote for them.”

IVP Donate

Hostin chimed in, arguing that such an independent-minded point of view made sense under the old Republican Party, but not when the GOP is led by President Donald Trump. “This is the Trump party. This is very different to me, in my view,” she said. 

“With the Trumplican Party the way that it is, this argument just doesn’t make sense to me.” When Haines called this a “narrow view,” Hostin repeated that “the Republican Party doesn’t exist as it did before.”

Haines wasn’t deterred:

My point here is the blind loyalty. The second I sat here at this desk and said I feel President Biden should step down, the hate I got was not from the right, it was from the left. To me, the reason I’m an independent is to say, ‘I call them like I see them and I hope you do, too.’ Because that’s the way the system should work.

Her remarks – past and present – have helped elevate the definition of being independent-minded under a system designed to endorse two private political organizations, including dispelling the myth that claiming independence automatically means being a moderate. 

Here is Haines on the October 7 episode of The View’s podcast, Behind The Table:

“The reason I’m an independent is I have pretty harsh critiques to each side of the political spectrum,” Haines said. 

Let Us Vote : Sign Now!

“Not equally, but they are pretty high-temperature problems for me so being an independent does not make you a moderate, it does not mean you don’t feel passionately about the things you believe in.” 

She added that people who are independent should be proud because so many individuals try to force everyone into a box to understand them in a flawed two-party system that does not represent America’s multi-layered society or accept criticism of one's own party.

Related articles

Joe Manchin
Manchin to DC: Independents Are Here, and We’re Not Going Away
The rise of an independent majority has long been dismissed by the press as a myth, which is why few people heard about an event in the nation’s capital on July 23 that gathered prominent and rising independent voices....
29 Jul, 2025
-
4 min read
Trojan horse being wheeled in front of CA state capitol building; two lawmakers holding a paper that says Repeal Reform
Trojan Horse: How CA Democrats Might Use Voter ID to Turn Back the Clock
Voter IDs are a requirement in almost every democracy in the world from Europe to Mexico.But legitim...
25 Jul, 2025
-
3 min read
Ranked Choice Voting Ballot and People
Beyond Ranked Choice Voting: How We Count The Votes Matters
Ranked choice voting keeps winning headlines. New York City uses it in primaries, Maine uses it stat...
24 Jul, 2025
-
5 min read

Latest articles

state of Louisiana with a closed stamp over it.
Louisiana’s New Voting System: Closed, Confusing, and Costly
Louisiana is making the switch to closed partisan primaries for some elections in 2026, using a syst...
30 Jul, 2025
-
6 min read
Stop light with the capitol building in the background.
DC Dems to Independent Voters: You Don’t Matter
The DC City Council had one final opportunity to fund a provision approved by 73% of city voters in November that would open primary elections to 83,000+ independent voters – and the Democratic-controlled body elected instead not to honor the will of voters....
29 Jul, 2025
-
2 min read
CCPOA honor guard.
California’s Soft Sentencing Freed a Violent Offender -- Then He Walked Into a State Office and Killed a Parole Agent
On July 17, a California state parole agent became the first CDCR officer killed in the line of duty since 2018 when he was shot inside a state parole office by a man who had been released just months earlier after serving only four years for randomly stabbing a stranger in the neck....
29 Jul, 2025
-
7 min read