Running Scared

President Obama’s strength among independent voters has waned since the 2008 election with more and more unaffiliated voters now identifying with Republicans, according to new data from Gallup. For the first time in more than four years of Gallup polls, more self-described independents now lean toward the Republican Party (15 percent) than toward the Democratic party (13 percent). Those numbers are a far cry from late 2006 — when almost twice as many independents leaned toward Democrats — or even late 2008 when Democratic-leaning independents outnumbered Republican-leaning independents 16 percent to 12 percent. Largely as a result of the movement of independents toward Republican, the wide party identification gap Democrats have enjoyed for the last two elections has shrunk to just six points — 48 percent Democratic, 42 Republican — the smallest that space has been since early 2005.