As  the Independent movement grows in strength, a backlash from the partisans of the major parties and  political status quo is only to be expected, for they have the most to  lose in the face of a truly Independent electorate. However, the  supposed “myth of the Independent voter” is perhaps the strongest piece  of evidence that they are simply in denial.

In May 2009, the Pew Research Center declared: “Independents take center stage in the age of Obama.” In the  months following the 2008 general election, Independent identification surged to its highest level in seventy years, surpassing that of  both the Democratic and Republican party brands.  Since then, there has  been a relatively steady supply of commentary and analysis arguing that,  for all intents and purposes, the supposed “Independent voter” does not  in fact exist, but is rather a long-standing myth of American political  culture.

Yet,  our nation’s politicians continue to seek their favor, and the White  House appears especially concerned about winning back the Independent  vote following the Democratic party’s poor performance in the midterm  elections.  Last week, The Washington Post reported that White House advisers are “deeply concerned about winning  back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an  eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19  points.”  In response, some liberal Democratic party strategists have  resuscitated the myth of the “myth of the Independent voter” to aid in  their opposition to this strategy.

In a widely circulated article published at The New Republic,  John B. Judis seeks to correct the White House’s “misguided view of the  Independent voter,” and in the process provides the reader with a  series of arguments that have been common currency among strategists for the major parties since at least 1992, when a  group of political scientists led by Bruce Keith published a work  entitled The Myth of the Independent Voter.  Let’s consider a sample of Judis’s arguments.

He  begins by stating that Independents are actually nothing more than a  figment of the pollster’s imagination.  Judis writes that:

“Independents  are not an organized or quasi-organized group like Democrats or  Republicans that have headquarters and nominate candidates, but a  creature of pollsters’ imagination.”

This statement of fact might come  as a surprise to any number of Independent candidates for elected  office, or their staffs and volunteers, or to voters who cast their  ballots for those Independent candidates.  It is indeed true that  Independents are not organized the way Democrats and Republicans are.   For instance, taxpayers do not have to foot the bill for primary  elections to nominate an Independent candidate for office, as they do  for the Republican and Democratic parties, which greatly benefit from  the subsidization of the primary process.

And yet, the fact that  Independents are indeed organized is demonstrated by the fact that there  are successful Independent candidates for elected office.  In Rhode  Island, where registered Independents outnumber Democrats and  Republicans, Lincoln Chafee was elected as the state’s first Independent  governor, besting his Democratic and Republican rivals.  Or were the results of this election simply invented out of whole cloth by a well-connected polling organization?

A  second facet of the supposed “myth of the Independent voter” asserts  that Independents are not actually independent, but rather partisan Democrats or Republicans who simply  prefer to think of themselves  as independent.  Judis sums up the argument stating that “many  independents are disguised partisans.”  Judis’s “disguised partisans”  are often termed “leaners” in the parlance of pollsters.  These are  individuals who identify themselves as Independents but, when asked  whether they lean toward the Republican or Democratic party, side with  one over the other.  It is worth mentioning that when people identify  themselves to a pollster as Democrats or Republicans, there is no  follow-up question inquiring if they are really Democrats or  Republicans, or asking whether they actually lean toward political  independence or toward a third party.

The results to such a line of  questioning might be rather interesting, to say the least.  How many  supposed Democrats or Republicans are actually just disguised  Independents? Nonetheless, it is not surprising to find that many  Independents have ideological, social, political or philosophical  inclinations which cause them, in the abstract, to prefer Republicans over  Democrats or vice versa.  However, the fact that many self-described  Independents lean one way or the other simply does not imply that they  are not independent, as the purveyors of the myth of the “myth of the  Independent voter” would have us conclude.

A  better explanation for why one Independent would consistently vote for  Democrats while another consistently supports Republicans might take the  structure of the two-party state into consideration.  Faced with a  forced choice between the Democratic and Republican parties, it may well  be impossible to actively express one’s political independence.   Arguably, to determine the relative independence of voters, the  important question is not whether they consistently cast ballots for  Democrats or Republicans when they have no other option, but rather  whether they would support a viable Independent candidate if they did  have the option.  Of course, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have  rigged our political system to make this latter situation unlikely, yet  Independents are capable of overcoming even these long odds.   Independents were elected to the legislatures of nearly ten states this year.  

In  addition to Democratic and Republican “leaners,” Judis also considers  what he calls “pure Independents,” who are sometimes absurdly referred  to as “Independent Independents” by pollsters.  These are individuals  who maintain their Independent identification even after being asked  whether they lean toward one major party or the other.  Judis writes,  “These independents, who are alienated from the party system itself, are  most likely not to vote at all.”  In other words, these Independents  refuse to submit to the forced choice between the Republican and  Democratic parties, and likely recognize the very form of the opposition  as a false choice underpinning the reigning two-party state, and thus  do not fall prey to the logic of lesser evilism that motivates leaners.   Judis estimates that pure Independents constitute roughly 10 percent  of the electorate.  However, there is evidence to suggest that there are  many more such individuals in the United States.  In the  majority of elections, the vast majority of eligible voters opt not to  vote rather than cast a ballot for the Democrats or Republicans.

It  is time to debunk the myth of the myth of the Independent voter. The  simplest way to do this is to build the Independent movement and support  Independent alternatives to the Democratic-Republican  status-quo.