Younger United States voters are drifting from both parties and instead registering as independent.
A Gallup poll shows that overall, 41% of young voters identify as independent, compared to 28% identifying as Democrat and the same amount identifying as Republican.
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The poll, which shows an average of identification from 1988-2022, shows a heavy spike beginning in the early 2010s and into the 2020s.
John Della Volpe, director of poling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, told Axios in an interview that millennials — and now Gen Z — have always been “fiercely independent.”
Typically, Americans have “weak attachments” to the two major political parties in young adulthood, and then lean one way or the other as they get older. However, an August 2022 Gallup report noted that each younger generation has had a greater proportion of independent voters throughout their lives than the prior generation.
Since 2009, independent identification has grown and reached levels “not seen before,” Jeffery M. Jones wrote in a recent report.
Compared to 2021, the 2022 figures show a one-point increase in Republican identification and a one-point decline in Democratic and independent identification. Last year marked only the ninth time in 35 years where Democrats did not hold two or more points over Republicans in party identification.
Gallup’s August poll report said the increase in younger voters leaning and remaining independent can possibly be attributed to political parties appealing to their secured voter base, rather than attempting to connect with the larger group of unaffiliated voters.
“This disconnect may explain low levels of trust in government and poor views of both parties in general,” the August report stated.
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The poll predicts 2023 party preferences will remain similar to last year’s, as several years in the past have shown party divisions to remain similar the year after a president’s party loses the House in the midterm elections.
