For several years I have followed a blog/substack called the liberal patriot. It folded a while back, but at least one of the authors has returned under a new name – Free Agent Politics by John Halpern. This week, he has came up with the idea that Independents are mostly moderate – and has backed the assertion with numbers:
I’m encouraging folks to find Halpern and Free Agent Politics and get a subscription. This sort of table is worth getting the substack regularly.
The fascinating thing to me wasn’t that 70% of independents are moderates – that fits in with my own mindset of ‘a plague on both your houses.’ The real impressive thing was that, while 28% of Independents are conservative, only 2% of liberals are. It provides a bit of understanding of national politics to me – the dems basically have the libs locked in, and they can’t improve the numbers much by jigging toward the center. The republicans still have 28 per cent of the conservatives outside their big tent – no wonder the two parties have such different strategies.
Halpin included another interesting stat – in 2019, PEW research said that 24 percent of Independents described their political views as liberal. I don’t expect different polls, in different years, to get the same results – but 2 percent is a lot less than 28 percent. I don’t claim to have an explanation.
Halpin ends his substack with a spot to subscribe. I tried to copy it – but failed. https://freeagentpolitics.com should get you there. Please click, see his last three articles, and at least think about subscribing.
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