The rise of the unaffiliated voter

Early voting has started. In North Carolina and across the nation there are many close races that will likely be decided by just a few percentage points. That means the swing voters — those who don’t vote a straight party ticket but instead vote for the candidate based on their qualifications or perhaps even their personality — could very well be the difference in those tight races.

That group of nonpartisan voters is the fastest growing bloc in the country. For anyone who follows politics, it’s no mystery why this happening. The two-party system in America is broke, and many have doubts it can be fixed. The constant rancor and divisive debate are hurting the country. Hell, people now avoid talking politics at social gatherings because it’s so difficult to have a discussion on the issues without it devolving into a kind of line-in-the-sand playground fight.

A January Gallup poll found that 42 percent of Americans call themselves independents, far ahead of the 29 percent who call themselves Democrats and the 27 who say they are Republicans.

Voter registration statistics in North Carolina show more partisans and fewer independents, but unaffiliated are still the majority. In our state unaffiliated voters clock in at 36 percent, with 34 percent registered as Democrats and 30 percent registered as Republicans. However, those registering as independents are the fastest growing bloc here, just as in the rest of the nation.

Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, has studied the increase in unaffiliated voters in North Carolina and the country. He was recently interviewed by the Washington Post about this issue, and he had some interesting thoughts on how this will affect the outcome of races in this election and what it bodes for the future. “Voters are signaling something to us. A lot of smart folks might disagree with me and say, ‘Look, so many of these are shadow partisans. Don’t worry about them. I think the voters are trying to say they may not be able to escape the two-party system, but they’re going to push back on it when they can,” Cooper told WP reporter Rhonda Colvin in an Oct. 24 story in

that newspaper.

In that piece, Cooper credited unaffiliated voters — who in North Carolina get to choose which primary to vote in — with knocking controversial congressman Madison Cawthorn out of office by flocking to the polls in the primary.

“Cawthorn, of course, infamous one-term member of Congress in North Carolina, lost his own party primary. Lost it for a host of reasons, but part of that is those unaffiliated voters got to choose which primary they wanted to vote in, and they came in much larger than the normal numbers to vote in the Republican primary. They voted Madison Cawthorn out of office.”

Cooper noted that a much larger percentage of young voters are registering as unaffiliated. I mentioned earlier how I’m sometimes reluctant to discuss politics at informal gatherings, but Cooper thinks registering as unaffiliated can also act as a kind of “social cover.”

“As Americans increasingly, one, express dissatisfaction with the two major parties and, two, do some social covering — if you say you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you might be shut out of dating pools, you might be shut out of a job. So [choosing nonpartisanship] is a way to cover yourself, but it’s also a way to express dissatisfaction with the two major parties,” Cooper said.

What’s interesting, and Cooper mentioned this in the WP article, is that unaffiliated candidates seldom win elected office. While independents make up the largest bloc of voters, to get elected right now you have to choose a party to get in bed with. As more young people define themselves as independent, however, sometime soon that may help us get rid of the two-party system that has dominated American politics for so long.

That’s a future I hope I’m around to see. (Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)

Scott McLeod Editor

Vote Platt for N.C. House 119

To the Editor:

Al Platt will be a terrific N.C. 119 District representative.

Al is an upstanding, respected and successful businessman, a family man and community advocate from Brevard. If elected, Al will work hard to serve the needs of the people in Jackson, Transylvania and Swain counties. He will vote to expand Medicaid to help working families have healthcare while creating jobs and strengthening rural economies.

Al knows we don’t have a shortage of teachers, rather a shortage of people that are willing to be underpaid, overworked and disrespected. He knows how hard teachers work and how important they are to our children’s education. He believes our climate is changing, that we still have a chance to change things and leave our planet better than we found it. Al believes our democracy is important!

Al’s opponent, incumbent Mike Clampitt, has proclaimed being a proud Oath Keeper for years. He only spoke out to say he didn’t condone the Oath Keeper participation in the January 6, 2021 insurrection after his name publicly appeared on a leaked Oath Keeper membership list in the fall of 2021. Clampitt is now saying he hasn’t been a dues-paying member of the group for several years. It seems to me being a member, at any point, of a group like the Oath Keepers that has consistently espoused extreme conspiratorial antigovernment rhetoric since its founding should be disqualifying. Publicly distancing one’s self from the group only after a failed coup shouldn’t absolve them from the consequences of past membership.

Can we really trust Clampitt to uphold our fragile democracy? Vote for democracy. Vote for Al Platt for N.C. House District 119! Carolyn Cagle Sylva

LETTERS

Conservatives’ concerns helped our schools

To the Editor.

I wholeheartedly agree with Editor Scott McLeod’s article in the October issue regarding removing politics from school boards and education in general.

However, I believe you have a case of being in the middle of the forest and not seeing the trees. When it comes to some of the more extreme measures of isolation our students where exposed to during COVID, introduction of critical race theory, transgender and sex education, these controversial issues were not seen as politicizing until the liberal left got push back from more conservative constituents. Had conservatives not spoken up these policies would have been adopted universally without any qualms about politics.

I also do not want teachers looking over their shoulders while teaching history, civics, English and art. Of note, you left math out of your article. But I do want them looking over their collective shoulders when indoctrinating our children with these controversial viewpoints when much of our population does not agree.

I am a part of that one third registered independent voters, and I look forward to The Smoky Mountain News, as I consider it one of the finest publications in WNC.