Independents represent a major unknown in the N.H. primary

Washington Post ^ | 01/05/2012 | Sandhya Somashekhar

[neverdem]

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Independents are a finicky and fickle bunch. They are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the country, with an overwhelming majority saying things are badly off track. Social issues do not concern them. Many of them voted for President Obama.

And now, this critical voting bloc — which makes up as much as 45 percent of the New Hampshire electorate — is about to take center stage. If the Iowa contest exposed the conflicted mood and sharp divisions within the GOP, then New Hampshire will offer a broader snapshot of a hard-to-pin-down sliver of the electorate that has an outsize impact on elections, particularly in this swing state.

“I’m disappointed in the unemployment rate and the economy, so I’m open and I’m listening,” said Julie Gagne, 52, an independent who voted for Obama in 2008.

Now, Gagne is planning to vote in the Republican primary Jan. 10. As part of her decision-making process, she...

--snip--

That sentiment is reverberating across New Hampshire and the country, as independents express their dissatisfaction with both the president and the alternatives. Their unhappiness could not matter more: Nationally, the candidates will be competing for the roughly one-third of the electorate that is considered independent and remains up for grabs...

--snip--

Independent voters — more than eight in 10 of whom are unhappy with the country’s political system — are more deeply unhappy with Washington than are Democrats or Republicans, and they’re far more apt than others to blame both sides in Congress...

--snip--

According to a Boston Globe-University of New Hampshire poll in December, Paul ranked first among independents who plan to vote in the New Hampshire primary, with 36 percent support. Romney came in second among independents, with 25 percent of the vote, and 21 percent preferred Huntsman...

[NFHale]

“...The GOP needs to stop fighting each other and start effectively educating these independents how incompetent this president is. ...”

Could you, like, re-post this phrase in all bold, caps, underlined, and italicized a thousand times....

That is the single most important statement made, Jim O...

[neverdem]

Independents shouldn’t be voting in a REPUBLICAN primary....

Good luck with that. This story says only 28 states register voters by party, and plenty of them have open primaries. What grabbed me about the WaPo story was the 45 % of voters being independents in New Hampshire. There are a number of states with very large percentages of indies, e.g. MA, CT, NJ, etc.

Independents Give Republicans Big Edge: Pew Survey

In four years, the percentage of independents who call themselves conservative grew to 36 percent from 29 percent. Kohut indicated that was a significant increase.

While Pew's sampling is usually skewed to the left, it's not very reassuring. Too many indies voted for Obama, when anybody who cared could have learned that Obama had the most liberal voting record in the Senate.