Dear Friend,
Unite America is excited to invite our supporters to join us tomorrow at noon EST for a conversation on “Who Are Independent Voters” based on research from the largest-ever survey of independent voters in closed primary states. We hope you’ll RSVP and join us.
During the webinar — which we are co-hosting with Open Primaries and the Arizona State University Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy — participants will hear from Sumati Thomas of Change Research. Thomas will report on the key findings from a poll of more than 2,000 independent voters across 22 closed primary states.
The poll's findings were published by the Unite America Institute in a white paper titled Not Invited to the Party Primary: Independent Voters and the Problem with Closed Primaries. The report covers the attitudes of the 23.5 million independent voters who cannot vote in taxpayer-funded primary elections. Some key findings of the report include:
70% of Excluded Independents believe both parties are too extreme;
Excluded Independents are much more likely to trust Democrats on healthcare, abortion, and climate policy and Republicans on immigration, the economy, crime, and gun rights;
77% of Excluded Independents consider the fact they are not allowed to vote in partisan primaries to be unfair, and 74% say it is a violation of voting rights;
87% of Excluded Independents support opening primaries to independent voters, while 81% support nonpartisan primaries in which all candidates compete on the same primary election ballot.
The survey also allowed independent voters to express in their own words why they are independent and what they think about America’s primary system.
