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- Nearly half of Americans now identify as political independents, the highest level in over a decade as measured by CNN polling.
- The new poll shows a shift away from Republicans since 2024, particularly among younger and male voters.
- Independents are younger and less politically engaged than party members, with only 67% registered to vote.
Nearly half of Americans say they don’t consider themselves a part of either major political party, the highest level of partisan independence measured by CNN polling in more than a decade.
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Independents have grown to 47% of the population, rising roughly 10 points since just after President Donald Trump’s first term as president, according to CNN polling. Over the last 20 years, CNN polling found independent identification peaked in 2015 at just a shade higher than it is today: 48% of Americans on average across all CNN polling that year were independents.
The poll suggests a shift away from Republicans since 2024 among registered voters, another ominous sign for the GOP ahead of the upcoming midterm elections as Trump’s approval ratings have sagged.
Democrats and Republicans split the remainder of the population in the new poll, with 27% of Americans identifying as Democrats and 26% as Republicans. Many independents do still lean toward one party or the other, and with those leaners included, 39% of Americans align more with Democrats, 37% with Republicans, and 25% say they don’t lean either way. In a further sign of just how evenly divided American politics is today, when those who don’t lean are pushed to choose a side, they also split almost evenly.
Neither party has held a meaningful advantage in overall identification in CNN’s benchmarking polls since 2021, when Democrats held a 6-point edge over Republicans. Since then, the parties have been separated by just 1 point in each year of CNN’s tracking.
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In this midterm election year, the new poll finds that among registered voters, Democrats narrowly outnumber Republicans, 31% to 28%, with 41% of voters saying they don’t identify with either party. While the margin is small, that’s a notable shift away from the GOP compared with 2024, when 34% of registered voters considered themselves Republicans, 31% Democrats and 35% said they didn’t consider themselves a part of either party.
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Since 2024, younger voters, male voters and White voters without college degrees have shifted away from the GOP, but not necessarily toward the Democrats. In the new poll, 17% of voters younger than 45 say they consider themselves Republicans, down from 26% who said the same in 2024. But the share who call themselves Democrats is fairly steady at 33%, with 50% saying they don’t consider themselves a part of either party. There are similar patterns among men – young men in particular – and White voters without college degrees.
Who are political independents?
Independents are not all politically in the middle. Many at least lean toward one of the two major parties, and previous polling has identified several types of independents with different levels of political engagement and varying ideological views.
Demographically, independents stand out from partisans in several ways. Independents are notably younger than partisans – 63% of those who don’t affiliate with a party are younger than 50, compared with 52% of Democrats and 38% of Republicans. They are more apt to say they live in a city or urban area than Republicans (40% vs. 28%), but less likely to be city-dwellers than are Democrats (49%). And their incomes tilt a bit lower than partisans, with nearly half in this category saying their annual household income falls below $50,000.
They are also far more likely to be checked out of politics. Just 67% say they are registered to vote, compared with more than 80% each among Democrats and Republicans, and only 25% say they frequently seek out the latest political news.
The CNN poll was conducted among 2,480 adults nationwide by SSRS from May 7-31, using a combination of online and telephone interviews. The survey samples were originally drawn from two sources – an address-based sample and a random-digit dial sample of prepaid cell phone numbers – and combined. Respondents were contacted by mail, phone or text. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
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CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy and Edward Wu contributed to this report.