Q&A of the Day – How many Floridians are really independents?
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: Recently you had a story that caught my attention. If I heard you right you said that there were more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida four years ago. Given how divided people were its unlikely registered Democrats would have voted for Trump so is it safe to say that most independents lean right, right?
Bottom Line: In Florida...yes but this is really a case of there being far fewer independents than most people, including pollsters, think. I’ll explain, first using the 2016 Florida voter registration information. In 2016 here’s what the voter registrations looked like in our state:
- Democrats: 37.9%
- Republicans: 35.3%
- Minor/NPA: 26.8%
Democrats held about a 2.5% voter registration advantage in 2016. Trump beat Clinton by 1.2% in our state. So that’s a near 4% better performance for Trump than voter registration would indicate. This supports the notion that most NPA’s lean right in Florida. This further holds true when you consider Republicans hold all statewide offices except for Agriculture Commissioner. In other words, Trump’s performance in Florida was more in line with the norm as opposed to being an outlier. But there’s something you asked that raises another important dynamic in this conversation and it’s commonly the reason why pollsters are consistently wrong in close elections, especially in Florida. You asked about independents. NPA’s aren’t necessarily independent and in reality, very few Independents – voters who truly don’t have partisan leanings, exist. Using historical Gallup data on partisan leanings, only about 8% of voters have been Independents. Most of Florida’s NPA’s are partisans registered as NPA’s in disguise. There are numerous reasons for this. Some people identify with a left or right ideology but may not be happy with the political parties and thus register as an NPA. Others do it for professional interests. Florida’s voter registration information is publicly accessible. Some business professionals opt to register as NPA’s so their registered political affiliation isn’t known by those who may not choose to do business with them if they didn’t care for their political preferences. Based on elections over the past two decades it’s safe to say that most of Florida’s NPA’s are right leaning.
This dynamic isn’t generally accounted for by pollsters who opt for samples of people who are “independents”. Using that approach omits about 18% of Florida’s voters who mostly lean right. Combine that with oversimplifying Hispanic samples and voila, that’s where most Florida polling looks worse for Republicans than turns out to be the case. Related to this conversation is how few voters vote split ballots. A 2014 study by the University of Virginia Center for Politics found only about 9% of voters vote split ballots. This adds up with 8% of voters being independent and almost all partisans voting straight tickets. Understanding voter composition is a tricky business, especially in Florida. Here’s the real takeaway from the data. Florida's Democrats are more likely to be overt than Florida’s Republicans and there are very few indy’s regardless of how people are registered.