Independents More Important Than Ever
December 12, 2011 by Sam Rolley
A recent report by think tank Third Way shows that more than 825,000 likely voters in eight key battleground States have fled the Democratic Party since Barack Obama won the Presidential election in 2008.
“The numbers show that Democrats’ path to victory just got harder,” said Lanae Erickson, the report’s co-author. “We are seeing both an increase in independents and a decrease in Democrats and that means the coalition they have to assemble is going to rely even more on independents in 2012 than it did in 2008.”
According to ABC News Radio, in eight vital 2012 electoral States — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — Democrats lost 5.4 percent of their registered voters, while Republicans lost 3.1 percent. The number of independent voters in those States grew by 3.4 percent at the same time.
“People are frustrated and the way you tune out in American politics is that is you drop the label of the two parties,” said Steven Jarding, a Harvard public policy professor and Democratic campaign strategist. “The danger for Obama in this is he is not only going to have to capture them but capture more of them because there are less Democratic voters.”
You can opt-out at any time. We protect your information like a mother hen. We will not sell or rent your email address to anyone for any reason.
