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With the 2024 presidential election campaign season quickly approaching, how many Americans continue to label themselves as either a Democrat or a Republican? According to ABC News contributor Sarah Isgur, a surprising and growing number of Americans are shifting away from identifying with one political party or another.
“It used to be the case that more people identified as Democrats then as Republicans, and then as independents, about a third of each,” Isgur said on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program. “That is not the case anymore. We now have 49% of Americans rejecting either label, Democrat or Republican, saying they’re just independent at this point, and exactly 25% of each saying they are Democrats and Republicans.”
This shift in numbers raises the possibility that a third party could be in the country’s political future, but Isgur suggested it’s not that simple, explaining that “The parties will get more extreme, these independent voters move further outside the system, but interestingly… these independents aren’t moderate. They’re all over the place, so it’s not like you can simply put them under one group of some party. They’re just free agents at this point; it’s very messy.”
Another ensuing issue, as Isgur also told Berman and Riedel, is that there would now be a smaller base of voters picking the ultimate candidates in the primaries. “’As people leave and you have that more concentrated, only 25% of Americans even possibly participating in these primaries, we have plenty of studies that show like-minded individuals end up becoming more extreme, and we’ve seen that the last 20 years, both political parties moving out to the more extreme.”
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