Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Pandemic's made partisanship even worse, independent voters say

Partisanship and coronavirus
OsakaWayne Studios/Getty Images

Griffiths is the editor of Independent Voter News, where a version of this story first appeared.

A whopping four out of five independents say the coronavirus pandemic has made partisanship in politics even clearer — and more critical to combat.

That's the top takeaway from the second nationwide poll conducted by Independent Voting, one of the main advocacy groups seeking to galvanize the two-fifths of Americans who don't identify with either major party and view their duopoly as one of democracy's major ills.


Pollsters for "Confronting A New Reality: Independents Speak Out" interviewed more than 3,600 independent voters over more than 100 days on the hot button issues of this campaign year, from the government's handling of Covid-19 to police reform to what being independent means to them.

The most lopsided finding was the 81 percent who said they believed the public health emergency has only made the problem of partisanship more critical to address.

poll of independent votersSource: Independent Voting

Three-fourths of those surveyed said mistakes were made by both Republican and Democratic elected officials in handling the pandemic. And 63 percent said the main problem with partisanship remains the resulting policy paralysis, which prevents the country's needs from being addressed.

A majority also agreed a root problem is the partisanship and divisiveness that dominates the electoral process — with 62 percent complaining that a main problem with this year's election landscape was that independents in many states were locked out of the primary process.

A third of those surveyed said they sometimes register with one of the major parties just so they can vote in the primaries — and that's a condition to voting most would like to see changed.

This data is important because it punctures the narrative that independent voters are a myth. Ultimately, they will choose a Republican or a Democrat, this theory goes, and so there is little point focusing on how four in 10 Americans refuse to identify with a political party.

Independents, though, make clear in the poll that they want change. They want an equal and meaningful voice in the process. They want a competitive and fair system. And, the more frustrated these voters get with the status quo, the more active they become in seeing a transformation in the American political process.

"Independent voters are optimistic that if we open up the electoral system and make it more democratic for everyone, we will start to see less partisanship and more cooperation for the good of everyone," wrote Tiani Coleman and Randy Miller, who supervised the survey.

Their polling also found 61 percent of independent voters want to explore the idea of a nonpartisan nominating process for the next presidential election, while 80 percent believe leaders of election and political reform groups should join forces and collaborate.

"If our country is to free itself from the clutches of partisanship, independents will have to lead the way." said the organization's president, Jackie Salit.

Read More

Poll: 82% of Americans Want Redistricting Done by Independent Commission, Not Politicians

Capitol building, Washington, DC

Unsplash/Getty Images

Poll: 82% of Americans Want Redistricting Done by Independent Commission, Not Politicians

There may be no greater indication that voters are not being listened to in the escalating redistricting war between the Republican and Democratic Parties than a new poll from NBC News that shows 8-in-10 Americans want the parties to stop.

It’s what they call an "80-20 issue," and yet neither party is standing up for the 80% as they prioritize control of Congress.

Keep ReadingShow less
Nationalization by Stealth: Trump’s New Industrial Playbook

The White House and money

AI generated image

Nationalization by Stealth: Trump’s New Industrial Playbook

In the United States, where the free market has long been exalted as the supreme engine of prosperity, a peculiar irony is taking shape. On August 22, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that the federal government had acquired a stake of just under 10% in Intel, instantly making itself the company’s largest shareholder. The stake - roughly 433 million shares, valued at about $8.9 billion, purchased at $20.47 each - was carved out of the Biden-era CHIPS Act subsidies and repackaged as equity. Formally, it is a passive, non-voting stake, with no board seat or governance rights. Yet symbolism matters: Washington now sits, however discreetly, in Intel’s shareholder register. Soon afterward, reports emerged that Samsung, South Korea’s industrial giant, had also been considered for similar treatment. What once would have been denounced as creeping socialism in Washington is now unfolding under Donald Trump, a president who boasts of his devotion to private enterprise but increasingly embraces tactics that blur the line between capitalism and state control.

The word “nationalization,” for decades associated with postwar Britain, Latin American populists, or Arab strongmen, is suddenly back in circulation - but this time applied to the citadel of capitalism itself. Trump justifies the intervention as a matter of national security and economic patriotism. Subsidies, he argues, are wasteful. Tariffs, in his view, are a stronger tool for forcing corporations to relocate factories to U.S. soil. Yet the CHIPS Act, that bipartisan legacy of the Biden years, remains in force and politically untouchable, funneling billions of dollars into domestic semiconductor projects. Rather than scrap it, Trump has chosen to alter the terms: companies that benefit from taxpayer largesse must now cede equity to the state. Intel, heavily reliant on those funds, has become the test case for this new model of American industrial policy.

Keep ReadingShow less