Yes, Independents Are Mostly Moderate

But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are policy centrists.

Although political independents, broadly defined, constitute the largest segment of the electorate according to many surveys, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about their precise demographic and ideological profile.

However, in May of this year, three academic researchers released an interesting new study on the contours and make-up of this increasingly important population that provides more concrete insights. In their report entitled “Who Are Independents? Are They Moderates?” Eveline Dowling, Nathan Micatka, and Caroline Tolbert used administrative voter-file data and modeled political and demographic information from Catalist complemented with a large national survey to learn more about independents. This methodology differs from traditional survey research alone, where people are typically asked if they consider themselves a Republican, Democrat, or independent with follow-up questions to see if independents lean one way or another or not at all.¹

The researchers drew random one percent samples from Catalist voter files in 2020, 2022, and 2023 to explore the composition of voters classified as independents using the modeled data and then compared them with the overall U.S. population. As seen in the table below, showing the 2023 sample, they discovered that independents are overwhelmingly moderate.

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Seventy percent of independents in this 2023 voter-file sample are classified as moderate, compared with just under half of the overall population. The percentages were even higher for the 2020 and 2022 samples, both showing more than 90 percent of independents classified as moderate. These data show that independents tend to be younger and less educated than U.S. adults more broadly. Independents are also more likely to be non-Latino white and less likely to be black than the overall population, while Latino representation is about the same. But there are no meaningful gender differences in the composition of independents.

This core finding is notable given other studies relying solely on self-reported party identification in survey data that directionally show independents being more moderate but at lower levels than those seen above. Pew Research, for example, released a nice report in 2019 on independents highlighting, “As in the past, more independents describe their political views as moderate (43 percent) than conservative (29 percent) or liberal (24 percent). These shares have changed little in recent years.”

The three researchers then dove into the 19,000+ respondents in the Collaborative Midterm Survey (CMS), funded by the National Science Foundation, to learn more about the views of political independents. Breaking out independents into those who lean toward Democrats or Republicans, excluding “true” independents who don’t lean either way due to low sample size, the researchers discovered that independents themselves are more likely than partisans to believe that independents:²

• Are more willing to work across party lines;

• Are less emotional about politics;

• Are more willing to consider opposing viewpoints; and

• Do not believe one should have to choose a party to vote in America.

This study therefore suggests that moderation among independents involves more than simply holding centrist positions on key economic, social, and national security policies.

Although there may be some alignment on specific centrist policies—something that I will explore in future posts—this new research indicates that independents place a premium on flexibility in politics, consideration of opposing viewpoints, a desire for cross-partisan cooperation, more political choices, and less rigid partisanship in general. Moderation, in this sense, offers a distinct political identity and framework for better understanding who these independent voters actually are and what they believe.

1. The researchers wrote this about the limitations of their methodology: “First, registration-based independents in the voter file data and survey self-identified independents are not fully interchangeable measures; voter file measures reflect a formal administrative decision, while survey-based measures capture psychological identification. These two populations may differ in meaningful ways, such as strength of partisan affect or likelihood of being an “undercover partisan.” Second, the ideology plus score used in the voter file analysis is a model-based, vendor measure derived from commercial and administrative data inputs. Given this, the findings may be sensitive to the assumptions underlying the Catalist model and the 40-60 cutoff used to define ideological moderates in our analysis. Finally, the perception items analyzed are limited to those available in the 2022 CMS. While these items map onto the identity and social dimensions central to our theoretical framework, other relevant dimensions—including political trust, efficacy, political knowledge, and preference for institutional reforms—are not captured, representing productive avenues for future research.”

2. Question wording: “Below are statements that have been used to describe independents that are not affiliated with either of the two major political parties in the U.S. (Democrats and Republicans). Check any of the following box(es) that you agree with. Independents…”