Record 45% of Americans identify as independents: Gallup poll

The findings by Gallup are based on interviews with more than 13,000 adults conducted throughout 2025. The polling firm has measured party identification regularly by telephone since 1988. Independents have typically been the largest political group, but their share has climbed sharply over the past 15 years, often reaching 40 percent or more, levels not seen before 2011.

Gallup attributed part of the increase to generational patterns. Majorities of Generation Z adults and millennials identified as independents in 2025, as did more than four in 10 Gen X adults, while one-third or fewer of baby boomers and Silent Generation adults did. Gallup also said young adults today are more likely than young adults in prior decades to call themselves independents. While more Americans are rejecting formal party labels, Gallup found many independents still lean toward a party. Of the 45 percent identifying as independent in 2025, Gallup reported 20 percent leaned Democratic, 15 percent leaned Republican, and 10 percent did not lean either way. That represented a shift from 2024, with Republican leaners down three points and Democratic leaners up three points.

Gallup said the balance between the parties has shifted quickly over the past 16 months. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Republicans held a four-point advantage in party affiliation, but that edge disappeared by the first quarter of 2025. Democrats moved ahead 46 to 43 percent in the second quarter, widening their advantage to seven points in the third quarter and eight points in the fourth quarter.

Gallup framed the movement as a major change in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, saying the Republican advantage that aided his reelection dissipated soon after he took office as independents’ leanings shifted. The polling group said Democrats’ advantage in party leanings expanded over the course of 2025, a trend it said was reflected in Democrats’ stronger performance in 2025 special elections compared with similar races in the more Republican-favorable 2024 cycle.

However, Gallup cautioned that the shift does not signal rising public warmth toward Democrats. It said favorable ratings of the Democratic Party are no better than those of the Republican Party and are among the worst Gallup has recorded for Democrats historically. Instead, Gallup argued the changes resemble a pattern seen from 2022 through 2024: a subset of Americans, particularly independents, moves away from the party associated with an unpopular incumbent president, previously Democrats under Joe Biden and now Republicans under Trump.

Gallup said that dynamic has contributed to frequent changes in power in Washington, noting that in each of the past six presidential or midterm election cycles, the incumbent president’s party has lost control of the presidency or at least one chamber of Congress.