Not a Teammate and Not a Fan: Probing the Identities of Unaffiliated Registered Voters
M. V. Hood et al.
What the paper says
For decades, in most states with a party registration option, the percentage of voters registering as unaffiliated with a major political party has steadily increased. But who are these registered voters in these polarized partisan times, and why might they register without a major party? We address these questions by drawing on parallel large-N original surveys of registered voters in two southeastern states experiencing a notable rise in registered independents but with different electoral rules for unaffiliated registrants. The closed primary rule in Florida reflects a much greater share of major party registrants versus North Carolina, which has a semi-closed primary rule. Nevertheless, even with these different primary laws, in both states we find that the decision not to register with a major party strongly covaries with identity as a political independent. Hence, registration rules may alter registration patterns, but individuals claiming to be less attached to a major party are markedly more likely to manifest this position by registering unaffiliated.
2 citations
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.25 × 0.4 = 0.10 |
| M · momentum | 0.55 × 0.15 = 0.08 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.