The biggest group of voters politicians will have to woo this November are the ones who often don't get a say in which candidates make into the general election ballot.
Turned off by the partisan wars in Washington, 39 percent of voters now identify themselves as independent rather than affiliated with one of the two major political parties, according to a 2014 analysis by the Pew Research Center. Self-identified Democrats accounted for 32 percent of the electorate, Republicans 23 percent.
That's a big shift from as recently as 2004 when the electorate was nearly evenly divided into the thirds by the three groups.
But many states require voters to affiliate with a party in order to take part in presidential primaries and caucuses.
NPR checked in with several member station reporters to see what the rise of independent voters means in different parts of the country.
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2 comments:
I live in MD and became a non affiliated voter a few years ago because I was sick of the Republican elitists that were not doing what they said they would do after election. Since MD never elects a conservatine candidate anyway I did not think it would hurt that I can't vote in the primaries. I do however get a lot of political campaign propaganda from everyone and everything running for office. Both parties think the "independant" vote is just so important and I get political surveys to fill out. When I was a Republican all I got was propaganda from the RNC begging for money for their RINO candidates. Actually I have been waiting for someone like Trump to appear that is not owned by the big money elitists from either party and would stand up against them and the Democrat government controlled media. I'm a happy camper ready to vote for Trump as soon as possible.
I have been a registered Republican all my life. Many times I have voted for Democrats because I believed they might represent the wishes of the taxpayers. However, those days are over. With Obama trashing America the past 8 years, I will never vote for another Democrat as long as I live.
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