Last week, the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation took a deep examination of the political parties and their constituents, the results of which were published on August 20. In this in-dept look at the independent voter, the Washington Post found that 7 out of 10 independent voters favor compromise to confrontation, suggesting that partisan politicians should cross party lines more often than not. When asked "Have you always thought of yourself as an independent, or have you thought of yourself as a Democrat or a Republican in the past?", the majority of participants (56%) maintained that they had always thought of themselves as independents, compared to the 22% who thought of themselves as Democrats in the past, and 16% past Republicans.
In the graphic below, the Washington Post asked participants to describe Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in one word. Here are the results:
If you had to describe independent voters in just one word, what would it be?