Independents: The tipping factor in the US elections

The first phase of the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions has come to a close, with the months lead­ing up to Novem­ber set to see a pitched bat­tle between Hillary Clin­ton and Don­ald Trump. Despite the prospect of Amer­i­ca mak­ing his­to­ry – on one side choos­ing a female Com­man­der-In-Chief and on the oth­er a real­i­ty TV star – the biggest head­line of the pri­maries has the been the rise of the Inde­pen­dent vot­er and the evi­dent weak­ness of the 2‑party Amer­i­can polit­i­cal sys­tem.

In the post­mod­ern world, with the flu­id­i­ty of iden­ti­ty, there is a yearn­ing for polit­i­cal alter­na­tives, a wave that is play­ing out across the Unit­ed States. The trend of ris­ing Inde­pen­dents and decline of Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers was ear­li­er indi­cat­ed by a Pew Research Cen­tre report in 2014, which showed that at the mid­dle of Obama’s Pres­i­den­cy, 39% vot­ers iden­ti­fied them­selves as Inde­pen­dents, while Democ­rats account­ed for 32% and Repub­li­cans at 23% of vot­ers. Fast for­ward to 2016, the nation­al Gallup poll, which emerged just a few weeks before the pri­ma­ry race in Feb­ru­ary showed that 42% of vot­ers iden­ti­fied them­selves as Inde­pen­dent vot­ers, with 29% as Democ­rats and 26% as Repub­li­cans. Accord­ing to the report of the polling agency – Inde­pen­dent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion has been above 40% for the last 5 years, breach­ing the mark back in 2011 towards the end of Obama’s first term. In fact, Oba­ma’s sec­ond term has left the per­cent­age of vot­ers iden­ti­fy­ing as Democ­rats at the low­est point in the past 27 years, main­tain­ing just a slim mar­gin over the Repub­li­cans. The Gallup report also high­lights that a key fac­tor behind vot­er migra­tion is the pol­i­cy grid­lock in the US Con­gress. This was a sig­nif­i­cant aspect of Obama’s last years as Pres­i­dent as he faced off against a Repub­li­can con­trolled Con­gress. To the dis­may of Democ­rats, even though Oba­ma cham­pi­oned key social leg­is­la­tion through Exec­u­tive Orders, the polit­i­cal advan­tage has failed to go to his par­ty or Hillary Clin­ton.

The report gives cre­dence to the rise of Bernie Sanders and Don­ald Trump as polit­i­cal jug­ger­nauts in the Pres­i­den­tial race. They are out­siders, a vet­er­an sen­a­tor and a self-styled right-wing god­man, har­ness­ing the strength of vot­ers estranged from the 2‑party sys­tem. Both lead­ers are no vet­er­ans of any par­ty and sim­ply sought their nod for the Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion. Bernie Sanders is the longest serv­ing Inde­pen­dent mem­ber of Con­gress in Amer­i­can his­to­ry while Don­ald Trump has changed polit­i­cal par­ties at least five times since the 1980s and struck oil with his care­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed polit­i­cal pitch to the right-wing vot­er base.

Even as the attri­tion rate of vot­ers is mar­gin­al­ly high­er in the Repub­li­can camp, sup­port for the two par­ties among Inde­pen­dent vot­ers is a dead heat. The Gallup poll study reveals that out of 42% vot­ers who iden­ti­fied as Inde­pen­dents, 16% leaned towards the Democ­rats, while anoth­er 16% leaned towards the Repub­li­cans. Yet, the demo­c­ra­t­ic advan­tage becomes clear where Bernie Sanders failed to secure tra­di­tion­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote banks. Sanders may have giv­en Hillary a tough fight, even forc­ing her to realign the nar­ra­tive of her cam­paign, yet she soared unchal­lenged in the del­e­gate-count to become the pre­sump­tive Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date. Trump mean­while was undis­put­ed in the race for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. He was miles ahead of every tra­di­tion­al Repub­li­can leader as well as par­ty vet­er­ans who all bowed out of the con­test.

The advan­tage of the Democ­rats is sim­ply a reflec­tion of the evo­lu­tion of the poli­ty of Amer­i­ca, where there is greater pub­lic sup­port and respect for social jus­tice issues which the Democ­rats have tra­di­tion­al­ly cham­pi­oned. Nonethe­less, the ‘advan­tage’ is a far cry from the pop­u­lar­i­ty the par­ty enjoyed in the George Bush era, where it sus­tained a com­fort­able 12 point advan­tage in mul­ti­ple vot­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion polls.

One major impli­ca­tion of ris­ing Inde­pen­dent vot­ers ral­ly­ing behind Sanders and Trump is the polar­i­sa­tion of the polit­i­cal nar­ra­tive. Sanders ‘polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion’ for uni­ver­sal rights and tack­ling income inequal­i­ty was met by Trump’s hate speech, which has gal­vanised the Repub­li­can fringe. This has pushed both par­ties to eye both ends of the spec­trum for polit­i­cal sup­port, as Inde­pen­dents edge them­selves into the league of tra­di­tion­al vote banks. Yet, the effect is dif­fer­ent for both par­ties. Inde­pen­dents have pushed the Democ­rats to get in touch with their social jus­tice ethos and base, con­nect­ing the par­ty to the pos­i­tive sen­ti­ment emerg­ing from Pres­i­dent Obama’s pol­i­cy break­throughs in his last months in office. How­ev­er, for the Repub­li­cans, Trump’s vit­ri­ol and zero pol­i­cy focus has ral­lied a major sec­tion of Inde­pen­dent and Repub­li­can vot­ers, but has crip­pled the party’s cred­i­bil­i­ty for years to come. No inter­na­tion­al leader can imag­ine deal­ing with Trump to decide the fate of the free world.

In the months lead­ing to the elec­tion in Novem­ber, Trump’s nar­ra­tive is like­ly to unrav­el in a face-to-face con­fronta­tion with Hillary Clin­ton. On a pan-Amer­i­ca stage fac­ing vot­ers of all polit­i­cal lean­ings, the real estate magnate’s ven­omous cam­paign and lack of admin­is­tra­tive expe­ri­ence is set to crum­ble before Hillary Clin­ton. It will be a suit­able leader ver­sus a down­right embar­rass­ment. Trump’s posi­tion at the helm of the GOP is like­ly to push the ‘Demo­c­rat-lean­ing’ Inde­pen­dents into the party’s fold – and it may even sur­pass the pop­u­lar­i­ty boost deliv­ered by George Bush’s pres­i­den­cy.

Inde­pen­dent vot­ers have proven to be a force to reck­on with. They have grant­ed a les­son to Democ­rats to get in touch with their ide­o­log­i­cal cen­tre and made Trump a polit­i­cal rock star. Yet, they have tor­pe­doed the Repub­li­can par­ty’s image and exposed the polit­i­cal bank­rupt­cy of their lead­er­ship.