Independents Clearly One Third of Electorate, Racially Diverse

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Partisan Trends: 33.5% of Americans are Republicans, 33.5% Unaffiliated, 33.0% Democrats (Rasmussen Reports) While the ranks of unaffiliateds grew during the month of the debt ceiling debate, the number in the president’s party declined. Now, 33.0% consider themselves to be Democrats, down from 34.8% in July and the lowest level measured in seven years.
• Rasmussen: Unaffiliated voters rise to their highest level ever (by Christopher A. Guzman, CAIVN)
• Independent voters: Disenfranchised and racially diverse (Public Radio International) Taeku Lee, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, told The Takeaway: What struck me was the overwhelming presumption that when speaking of independent voters, you're speaking of a predominantly white segment of the electorate, which all the exit polls from 2008 show that clearly, independent voters today in the United States are a far more demographically diverse segment of the electorate. iTunes AUDIO