Plurality of Younger U.S. Voters Are Registering as Independent

A plurality of younger voters in the United States are registering as independents, according to a Gallup report.

The report authored by Jeffrey Jones showed that younger voters appear to be rejecting the two main political parties and are identifying as independents. Currently, Americans are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans at 28 percent, while a plurality, 41 percent, identified as independent.

According to the results the report used, which were taken before the midterms in August, the millennials and generation X were the largest contributors as to why a plurality identify as independents:

• 52 percent of millennials
• 44 percent of generation X
• 33 percent of baby boomers
• 26 percent of the silent generation

Jones’ report last week indicated that in the early 1990s, shortly after Gallup started to conduct the interviews, independents began to outnumber Republicans and Democrats, but the advantage faded in the early 2000s until 2009 when identifying as an independent “has grown and reached levels not seen before.”

Additionally, last August, Jones wrote that the historical patterns of Americans are having a weak attachment to a party during young adulthood before “likely” identifying with either the Democrat or Republican Party later on in life, but more recently, this has appeared to change with generation X and millennials, who are now approaching, or are middle-aged. Jones noted that they “have maintained or even expanded their identification as political independents in recent decades.”

The 2022 numbers the report used represented a one-point increase for the GOP since 2021 and a one point decline in Democrat and independent identification in the same amount of time. However, Jones also noted that 2022 was the ninth time in the last 35 years that Democrats did not hold at least two or more percent more than Republicans, pointing to 1991, 1995, 2001 to 2005, and 2020.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.