Independents I suppose just like to think of themselves as not being partisan even though they're just as likely to stick to their electoral preferences as Republicans and Democrats.
In January 2008, 32% of respondents in the ANES panel survey described themselves as independents. And these independent voters were, in fact, less certain about their presidential vote choice in June than voters who identified with a party. Only 61% of independent voters were extremely or very sure about their choice compared with 81% of partisan voters. However, despite their lower level of subjective certainty, independent voters were only slightly less stable in their candidate preferences between June and November than party identifiers: 11% of independents switched sides, compared with 7% of partisans. Fully 89% of independents maintained the same candidate preference over this five month period, including 90% of independents who leaned toward a party and 88% of “pure independents” who expressed no party preference whatsoever. Based on these results, the popular image of independents as unstable voters moving back and forth between candidates in response to news stories and campaign events is a major distortion of reality.http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/it-dont-mean-a-thing-if-it-aint-got-that-swing/
