Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Independents vital to Biden win, boon to a good-governance cause

Joe Biden

Independents favored Joe Biden by 13 points nationally and in many battleground states he carried narrowly

Demetrius Freeman/Getty Images

Americans not aligned with either major party favored Joe Biden for president by 13 percentage points, exit polls show.

It's the biggest margin among independents in more than three decades. That's welcome evidence to those who perceive American democracy's problems as largely rooted in the major-party duopoly, and who say the system will work better if independents are awarded more political influence.


The population of voters who don't identify with either major party has trended upwards in the past two decades and accounted for 36 percent of the potential electorate this fall, according to Gallup. They nonetheless cast only 26 percent of the ballots last week, according to the more widely used of the two national exit polls, by Edison Research.

The Democratic former vice president got 54 percent of their votes, to 41 percent for President Trump.

It was the most lopsided independent vote since George H.W. Bush won it by 14 points on his way to defeating Michael Dukakis in 1988. Trump won the White House with a 4-point edge among unaffiliated voters four years ago and Barack Obama won in 2008 with the help of an 8-point margin of independents.

Unaffiliated voters also played a decisive role in tipping several battleground states narrowly in favor of Biden, who has become president-elect with at last 290 electoral votes as of Friday and a popular vote margin of more than 5 million.

Statewide exit polls by Edison found independents preferred him by 14 points in Wisconsin, 11 points in Arizona and 8 points in both Michigan and Pennsylvania.

While independent voters' impact is huge, it should not be interpreted as allegiance to either of the major parties, said Jacqueline Salit, president of Independent Voting, a national organization advocating against the political binary. "If anything, it's a vote that says, 'Get us out of this partisan sinkhole,'" she said.

Read More

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals
Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals

Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care.

Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year.

Keep ReadingShow less
Is Trump Normalizing Military Occupation of American Cities?
Protesters confront California National Guard soldiers and police outside of a federal building as protests continue in Los Angeles following three days of clashes with police after a series of immigration raids on June 09, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Getty Images, David McNew

Is Trump Normalizing Military Occupation of American Cities?

President Trump’s military interventions in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., foretell his plan for other cities.

The Washington Post recently reported on the Pentagon’s plans for a “quick reaction force” to deploy amid civil unrest. And, broad mobilization of the military on U.S. soil could happen under the Insurrection Act, which Trump has flirted with invoking. That rarely used Act allows troops to arrest and use force against civilians, which is otherwise prohibited by longstanding law and tradition.

Keep ReadingShow less
Celebrating National Black Business Month

National Black Business Month is about correcting an imbalance and recognizing that supporting Black-owned businesses is suitable for everyone.

Getty Images, Tara Moore

Celebrating National Black Business Month

Every August, National Black Business Month rolls around, and for a few weeks, social media lights up with hashtags and well-meaning posts about supporting Black-owned businesses. You'll see lists pop up—restaurants, bookstores, clothing lines—all run by Black entrepreneurs. Maybe your favorite coffee shop puts up a sign, or a big brand launches a campaign. But once the month ends, the noise fades, and for many, it's back to business as usual.

This cycle is familiar. It's easy to mistake visibility for progress or to think that a single purchase is enough. But National Black Business Month is meant to be more than a fleeting moment of recognition. It's a moment to interrogate the systems that got us here and to put our money—and our intent—where our mouths are. In a better world, Black business success would be a given, not a cause for annual celebration.

Keep ReadingShow less