Between the presidency, gubernatorial races, congressional seats, and local and national offices, the United States election cycle is an essential staple of American life. But with the two parties dominating the playing field, sorting us into one camp or the other, the spotlight of campaign season often focuses on one crucial, growing group within the electorate – undecided or “swing voters.” 

“Swing voters” are not a new phenomenon, but rather a growing indication that many Americans are pushing back against the two party system’s status-quo way of doing things. According to Gallup, a record-high 45% of U.S. voters now identify themselves as politically independent – a trend that has been on the rise in recent years. 

For Independents, party allegiance does not yield automatic support. Candidates have to work for their vote and shape their platforms for broad appeal to win over voters who are not automatically and consistently aligned with one side. More often than not, however, once a winner is in office they are back to partisan politics and business as usual. 

Often, Independents are dismissed as an amorphous group that either lacks clear values or stubbornly refuses to choose a lane, or both. 

But people in the political middle are not inherently nonpartisan or apolitical. In reality, many Independents lean closer to one side over the other, but are dissatisfied with the way parties operate as institutions. 

They recognize that the parties, more than their politics, are the problem and don’t trust them to hold true to their promises or have their best interest at heart.

It is rare that any individual voter aligns perfectly with the policy positions of one political side or the other. Indeed, the very nature of “swinging” implies gradations of agreement. For Independents, it’s not about reinventing the entire legislative process – it’s about re-designing the incentives and the system so that they work to benefit the American people. 

Policies Over Parties

Independent voting in the United States has been on the rise since the early 2000s, when shifts in party loyalty became visible and split-ticket voting began decreasing significantly. Whereas many Americans used to vote across party lines on their ballots, most now vote for one side straight down the ticket. 

Elections have become less about individual issues and more about party labels and loyalty. 

The common criticism of Independents is that there are very few who are actually “independent” politically and that’s true – about 81% lean toward either the Republican or Democratic Party (Pew Research Center). But instead of diminishing their point this distinction underscores it. 

Too often, polling organizations overlook Independent and third party identities – their preferences falling under the radar. 

Extensive polling that we collect through YouGov helps to confirm the legitimate independent status of voters by providing detailed 7-point demographic data reflecting political leaning and preferences. This gives massive insight into a frequently unmeasured demographic that’s becoming a true silent majority. 

According to our data, Independents overlap with the two major parties on several key issues affecting nearly every American. Economic mobility, K-12 education, and healthcare, for example, were areas that all three groups strongly aligned – with support consistently 60% or above from Independents, matching almost equal endorsement from Republicans and Democrats. 

That agreement was not wholly universal. In some policy categories Independents aligned more closely with one party than the other. In others, they pushed back against both Republicans and Democrats. 

Independents, then, are neither totally separate from nor a true middle between either party – they are an amalgamation of both, focused on identifying the issues and policies that most represent their aspirations and those of their loved ones. 

This position struggles to gain traction within a fixed two-party system. The motivation to fall behind either party is too strong – if independent voters don’t choose one or the other, they will be left out of the conversation entirely. 

Without capturing everyone’s voice – especially the variety of centrists within the political middle –  it’s difficult to identify which issues truly divide Americans. Or, more importantly, discover the issues that unite us. 

The Question of Tradeoffs 

No total package is perfect because human beings are not uniform in their values. Every vote, in essence, is a question of tradeoffs.

Tradeoffs aren’t inherently negative – they’re an essential part of shaping policy in a nation as large and diverse as the United States. 

Good tradeoffs align the accepted costs with personal goals and values. Bad tradeoffs impose costs that undermine them. Unable to participate in closed primaries and minimally represented on the political stage, a tradeoff vote is often the latter for Independents – a choice between whichever candidate they object to the least. 

The most recent presidential election illustrates this. 

In August of 2024, the Marist Poll found that 65% of Independents were “either not very satisfied or not satisfied at all” with the two major-party nominees. Yet, exit polling indicates that self-identified Independents made up about 34% of voters on election day, their support split relatively equally between both candidates. What’s more, this was a substantial increase from the 2020 presidential election, when Independents made up about 26% of voters (Edison Research).

While many Independents objected to the two choices offered, a sizable number still turned out to cast their ballots rather than remain on the sidelines – so much so that Independent voters surpassed the number of Democratic voters (31%) and nearly tied Republican voters (35%) who turned out according to Edison Research. 

Party allegiance often results in accepting more tradeoffs for less gains. Platforms are shaped by party leadership behind closed doors to advance long-term national agendas instead of addressing the issues of constituents, who are expected to acquiesce and follow along. 

As a result, there is almost no incentive to compromise or find agreement across the aisle in order to get meaningful legislation passed.

Consider this: a package of practical policy proposals not tied to either major party? 

WebApp data collected from YouGov revealed a strong willingness to compromise beyond the binary choice of party labels – particularly from users who identified as Independents. 

Despite pushback on some of the Grand Bargain reforms, 90% of Independents still chose the total package over the country’s current direction in September of 2025. For these voters, a national roadmap that could feasibly achieve what most mattered to them was worth accepting the tradeoffs of issues they didn’t wholeheartedly support. 

That thinking runs counter to the way the two parties operate now – focused solely on short term wins and narrow special interests, they lack the foresight or willingness to build solutions for long term advancement. No promising legislation will get far unless both sides are willing to make concessions – to accept the tradeoffs that Independents have long understood are essential to achieving even the most minor of wins. 

Interestingly, when we added 3 congressional reforms to our WebApp in December of 2025, overall support for the package from this group fell to 81%.Our thinking is that the reforms we added to fix a broken political system perhaps did not go far enough. Longing to see more reforms in this area, Independents may have found it difficult to accept a package that in their minds did not go far enough to break the two-party monopoly.

As long as both parties dominate the arena, bipartisan reforms for meaningful change won’t make it very far. 

The Independent State-of-Mind

The United States has largely had a two-party political system since its founding, with power oscillating between whichever two coalitions had the largest voter bases. Many of the nation’s Founding Fathers, however, were skeptical of creating institutional divides within the emerging republic and avoided rigid party identification – George Washington even warned against it in his 1769 Farewell Address. 

They saw political parties as inherently dividing Americans rather than uniting them.

Now, almost 250 years later, many of us recognize that their fears have been realized. To be in one camp, today, inherently means to be “against” the other. In order to win reelection, politicians merely have to appease their loudest supporters or attack the other side – while temporarily appeasing those in the middle during their campaigns. As the record reflects, most major legislation only yields incremental wins – failing to address core problems or advance our aspirations.

This underscores the question many of us are asking: “Are just two political parties sufficient to represent the interests and values of more than 330 million Americans?” 

It’s this thinking that’s led Independents – and voters all across the political middle – to see both parties as stifling their voices. For them to be convinced otherwise will require ending the two-party monopoly on elections and returning to the collaborative policy-making that has yielded so many major legislative achievements for the nation – wins that have benefited almost everyone.

Let's start ending the two-party monopoly together - try the Grand Bargain WebApp , below.