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Do Independents Hold a Stable Issue Attitude over Time?
Sat, September 2, 2:30 to 3:00pm PDT (2:30 to 3:00pm PDT), Virtual, Virtual 11Abstract
Independent voters are the fastest-growing bloc in the United States. Also, the issue attitude among political independents has been documented for several years; however, we have limited knowledge about the relationship between independent voters and their attitudes toward various social issues. Moreover, do independent voters hold a crystalized and stable attitude on different issues over time?
This paper focuses on a set of long-term trends associated with the political independents: the ideology stability and issue attitude among the people in the US. Independent identity serves as a moderate option in the competition between the two major parties. Could it be a salient identity to guide people's behavior and issue attitude?
Previous research has shown that stronger attitudes are more stable than weaker ones. However, if people do not have a strong affiliation with the political party, they lack a shortcut to understanding the difference between issues between the two parties. Therefore, would they have a clear attitude toward the different issues? In this study, I test several salient social issues in society, such as gun control and immigration policy, to see whether independents display a stable attitude toward these different kinds of issues.
To understand the changing pattern, I use the panel data from Cooperative Election Study (CES) 2010-2014 to analyze the change in independent voters' issue attitudes. The findings show that the change is quite small over time. In other words, independent voters hold solid attitudes toward certain issues, and the difference between partisans and pure independents is relatively small. These data provide evidence that political independents are not only a stable identity but also an attitude.