More voters are increasingly drifting away from the two major U.S. political parties and registering as independents.
A Gallup poll shows that 41% of voters identify as independent, compared to 28% identifying as Democrat and the same amount identifying as Republican. It's the largest percentage of Americans to ever identify as independents, according to the Gallup.
"Since 2009, independent identification has grown and reached levels not seen before. Now, political independents greatly outnumber Republican and Democratic identifiers," the poll noted.
Since 2011, no less than 39% of Americans have identified as independent, with the percentage 40% or higher in all but the 2016 and 2020 presidential election years, according to the poll. Before 2011, independent identification reached as high as 39% only twice: in 1995 and 2007.
Experts say Americans typically have "weak attachments" to the two major political parties in young adulthood, and then lean one way or the other as they get older.
The recent study also noted that each younger generation has had a greater proportion of independent voters throughout their lives than the prior generation.
A 2022 Gallup analysis found that increased independent identification appears to be driven in large part by Generation X and the millennial generation continuing to identify as independents as they age. And the trend is continuing with Generation Z.
According to the analysis, the majority of millennials (between the ages of 26 and 41), 52%, are independent, and that percentage has increased by five percentage points in each of the past two decades. Members of Generation Z who have reached adulthood (ages 18 to 25) match millennials in the percentage of political independents, at 52%, the analysis shows.
Additionally, 44% of Generation X (ages 42 to 57) identifies as political independents, which is unchanged from three decades ago, when the first part of the generation was entering adulthood, according to Gallup.
Meanwhile, the analysis shows show far lower, and declining, proportions of independents among the Silent Generation (between the ages of 77 and 94) now at 26%, and baby boomers (ages 58 to 76) now at 33%, consistent with the historical pattern.
While younger generations tend to be more politically independent than older generations, older Americans are much more likely to identify as Republicans. According to Gallup, Republican identification is most common among the oldest generation of Americans -- the Silent Generation, at 39% -- and is less common at each lower rung on the generational ladder, down to 17% among Generation Z.
Democratic Party identification, meantime, is more uniform across the five generational groupings, ranging between 27% and 35%, Gallup says.
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