Think what one will about independents. They are the election deciders. Especially in national elections for the presidency. Although independents make up 45% of the electorate, about half aren’t interested in politics and never bother to vote. Independents make up only 30% or less of those who do vote. While the bases of the two major parties make up 55% of the total electorate, they make up 70% or a bit more of those who do vote. You can see the breakdown for the midterms via party in the link below.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/houseand for the 2020 presidential election.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-resultsThe two major parties are relatively even where their base is concerned. They tend to cancel each other out within a couple of points among those who do vote. As seen in the exit polls above. The fact that RFK Jr. is drawing 14% of the vote, mostly independents is something to take into consideration when viewing the up coming election from all Americans perspectives than just the loyal democratic partisan point of view. Which simply means Biden isn’t coming close to the 54% of the independents vote he garnered in 2020. He’s around 15 points below that. In fact, most polls show Trump with a point or two lead over Biden with other as the polls call third party voters and will not vote extremely high for the 2024 election. If one averages out for independents the other or third-party voters along with will not vote, the combined total is 34%. Compare that to 2020 when the combined total was 12% when Biden won independents 54-41 over Trump and to 2016 when the combined total was 26%. Trump won independents in 2016 46-42 over Clinton with 12% voting third party.
Why is this important, the numbers point to a low voter turnout for 2024 along with a high third-party vote. Voter turnout in 2016 when both major party candidates were disliked and unwanted was 54% using VAP, total third-party vote 6%. In 2020 voter turnout was 62% with third party vote at 1.8%. Due to the disliked and unwantedness of both major parties candidates, I wouldn’t be surprised to see voter turnout below the 54% of 2016 and the third-party vote among those who do turnout higher than the 6% in 2016. At least that what the numbers are telling us today, although they could change tomorrow.
One last thing, 60% of all Americans don’t want Biden to run again, question 14. 56% of all Americans don’t want Trump to run again either, question 15. For most Americans, this rematch of an election is one made in hell. Hence the tie between Biden and Trump in all the recent polling. Not only recent but going back to January 2023, Trump and Biden has been within a point or two of each other. Drop below the first set of polls to see the graph below them on the second link below.
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_wyX9VrC.pdfhttps://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/us/general-election-trump-vs-biden-7383.html
