A whole lot of professed “independents” are actually Republicans who just don’t want to admit it, when you probe even just a little bit.
That’s why there is Murc’s Law and the term “reactionary centrists”.
And then a large portion of the others are just fence-sitters that are generally low-info, but throw in with what they think will be the “winning team”. Or vote for/against someone based on some arbitrary trait - they found the candidate tall/attractive, they didn’t like the way they laughed, etc…
Lastly: nearly everyone knows that elections are decided at the margins. No one contests that. But it’s not really like most “independents” are evaluating things on the merits like some set of perfectly rational actors. Just because elections that are nearly 50/50 and swung by the arbitrary whims of a few people that don’t profess allegiance to being R or D does not really speak to the actual independence of people that merely claim they are independent.
A whole lot of professed “independents” are actually Republicans who just don’t want to admit it, when you probe even just a little bit.
That’s why there is Murc’s Law and the term “reactionary centrists”.
And then a large portion of the others are just fence-sitters that are generally low-info, but throw in with what they think will be the “winning team”. Or vote for/against someone based on some arbitrary trait - they found the candidate tall/attractive, they didn’t like the way they laughed, etc…
Lastly: nearly everyone knows that elections are decided at the margins. No one contests that. But it’s not really like most “independents” are evaluating things on the merits like some set of perfectly rational actors. Just because elections that are nearly 50/50 and swung by the arbitrary whims of a few people that don’t profess allegiance to being R or D does not really speak to the actual independence of people that merely claim they are independent.