Were New Hampshire Independents Really Independent?
EmailThe first thing that pops out at you when looking at the New Hampshire exit polls is the large number of independents who turned out to vote. Almost half the electorate in New Hampshire’s Republican primary defined themselves as independent (47 percent), while 48 percent said they were Republicans.
Why such a big surge?
First, it’s clear that Ron Paul attracts a group of voters that aren’t traditional Republican activists. In fact, Paul won the independent vote with 31 percent. Mitt Romney took 27 percent and Jon Huntsman took 23 percent of this group. Of the 13 percent of voters that said they’d never voted in a Republican primary before today, Paul carried 37 percent of them.
Still, there are also signs that these voters may call themselves independents, but in ideology and past voting behavior they are really more like Republicans.
A huge percentage of these independent voters – 85 percent – say they have voted in a Republican primary before today. Ron Paul carried those voters who said they had never voted in a Republican primary with 37 percent.
Moreover, even as the percentage of independents increased, we didn’t see much change in the ideological make-up of the Republican electorate from where it was in 2008. In 2008, for example, 55 percent of Republican primary voters called themselves conservative or very conservative. This year, 52 percent identify as conservative or very conservative.
In other words, many of these voters who are identifying themselves as independents are really Republicans. Given the surge we’ve seen nationally in the number of voters who call themselves independents, it’s not surprising to see that playing out in New Hampshire as well.
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“In other words, many of these voters who are identifying themselves as independents are really Republicans “=========Well , this is certainly news to me…(*rolls eyes*) Lol !
Posted by: davem | January 10, 2012, 10:10 pm 10:10 pm
The saying goes that there are 3 types of liars (liars, damned liars and liars who use statistics) and this author is the third type… but this author is an incompetent third type.
Why? in Amy’s opinion if a voter had voted before in a republican primary they weren’t independent but she ignored the possibility that the same voter might have also earlier voted in a democratic primary. If a voter switches back and forth between the two dominant parties they are the idea of an independent voter.
But from the view point of Amy once you vote republican you are forever a republican.
Give us the full data and don’t dump such incompetently analyzed data on us. I suspect more then a few of your readers know better.
Posted by: Steve M | January 11, 2012, 1:03 am 1:03 am
I wouldn’t be so quick to say they are really republicans. Many of these independents have no intention of voting for Romney.
I’m not the only one.
Fair is fair, Romney supporters won’t support Paul if he’s nominated, so just count on me to sit at home on election day if Romney is nominated.
Posted by: RoboBobo | January 11, 2012, 6:02 am 6:02 am
Amy
The reason there is a large number of independents in NH is that it allows you to pick the primary you want to vote in. Many folks select “Undeclared” as a party so they can vote in a primary.
Depending on your town or location, selecting “Republican” or “Democrat” is not always in your interest.
Sometimes the only advantage of selecting a party in NH is that you might not get all the targeted mail, robo-calls and polling questions that occur when you are targeted as a R or D. As a registered Democrat, I rarely recieved any mail this election, except for Obama get out the vote efforts.
My Republican friends, on the other hand, had mailboxes full and didn’t answer phones the week before the primary in fear of robo-calls.
Long-story short, your last line is probably correct. The “independents” that voted this week were probably Republicans (most like the old style New England Country Club Republican). And, if Dems voted as an Independent, it would have been for Huntsman or maybe Romney.
Posted by: Ross P | January 11, 2012, 8:55 am 8:55 am