PHOENIX (By Matthew Benson and Amanda J.
Crawford, Arizona Republic) November 26, 2006 —
Scott Dunn is a man without a political party, one of a growing force in
Arizona elections who identifies neither with Democrats nor Republicans.
The 35-year-old Chandler resident is an independent. While the state's two major parties have added tens of thousands of registered voters since the 2000 general election, the ranks of the independents have soared by nearly 300,000.
Experts say independents had a huge impact on this month's election in Arizona and could soon be the dominant force in state politics. That would likely mean fundamental changes in how the major parties and political campaigns operate as they try to reach and win over voters who are often considered disengaged and unpredictable.
Independents "have doubled their numbers in 10 years, and they will continue to grow," said Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill. "At the current rate, it won't be long before they are the dominant group of voters in the state."
Since the 2004 general election, voters categorized by the state as "other" - almost entirely independents - were the only group to see their numbers grow. They now comprise one in four registered voters.
Eighty percent voted for Gov. Janet Napolitano, helping give her what she has described as a mandate for her middle-of-the-road approach to governing.
Meanwhile, considerably more state legislative races turned out to be competitive this year than expected, even in districts where Republicans or Democrats strongly outnumbered members of the opposing party. A possible explanation: the growth in the number of voters with no party affiliation.
While partisan voters, the loyal so-called "base," remain a campaign cornerstone, independents are increasingly being targeted. This election season, campaigns of all political stripes tailored their messages to reach them, and that investment is likely to only increase next time.
"I think it's very possible that by the time the 2010 election rolls around, independents could make up fully one-third of the (Arizona) electorate," said Phoenix political consultant Barry Dill, a longtime adviser to Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Outnumbered by registered Republicans, Democrats have aggressively pursued independents over the past decade. But the GOP, more than a million strong statewide, now is doing likewise.
"You'd be crazy if you didn't spend time and resources targeting independents," said Jake Logan, a Republican consultant who led Sen. Jon Kyl's successful re-election bid earlier this month. "Right now, they can make or break an election."
Such is the influence of voters like Scott Dunn.
"I've never voted a straight ticket," said Dunn, an employee of the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau. "I've never really been a joiner.
"I don't want to be a Republican. I don't want to be a Democrat."
First, they are unpredictable.
They tend to look over their ballots measure by measure, candidate by candidate, avoiding any underlying ideology. Example No. 1: Bethany Andrews. The 27-year-old Glendale resident and ASU student said she tends to vote based on key issues, such as her support for abortion rights. Negative campaigning turns her off.
"I believe in voting on the issues and the people and whatever platform they're running on," Andrews said.
Party labels? No big deal. Andrews, for example, cast her gubernatorial vote for Libertarian Barry Hess but voted for Democrat Jim Pederson for Senate.
For evidence of the influence of unaffiliated voters, just look at this month's results: Napolitano was re-elected in a walk, and Democrat Harry Mitchell upended six-term incumbent Congressman J.D. Hayworth in an election-night surprise. A ban on gay marriage backed by social conservatives failed, and a minimum-wage increase supported by liberal groups passed.
Several anti-illegal immigration measures put on the ballot by conservative legislators passed by a wide margin.
Scattershot? Conflicting? Absolutely, but they are the kind of mixed results you see when a huge chunk of the electorate is not tied to a particular ideology.
"They are unaffiliated with a party, so they are more open to changing their mind and weighing any one race based on issues," said Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University and director of its social research laboratory. "Often, it is the independents who are deciding races now, being more open-minded, weighing the individual merits of candidates or issues."
Of course, a more independent electorate does not necessarily mean a more educated one. Merrill noted that independent voters tend to be less politically informed and more easily swayed by campaign messages and ads.
"It's not this group of people that really studies the issues and goes back and forth before they head to the polls," Merrill said. "They, as a group, tend to be turned off by politics."
That political revulsion tends to depress their turnout numbers on Election Day. Nonetheless, the group's size and growth make it one of Arizona's biggest swing-voter blocs and a force that is impossible to ignore.
Arizona has been an open-primary state since 2004, meaning voters not affiliated with a political party can participate in primary elections. The change helped fuel the growth in independents because voters in states with closed primaries must join a party if they want to have a say in non-general elections.
While much has been made of Arizona's libertarian streak, the state's number of registered Libertarians has increased by only about 5,000 in six years. Arizona Libertarians number 17,446.
Partisan voters typically vote for candidates of their party between 70 and 80 percent of the time, Solop said. In many races, especially in competitive districts, that leaves independent voters as the wild card.
"The independents are playing a role in everything. They are a key factor and are a group that all candidates need to appeal to at this point in time," Solop said.
"It is not enough to be rooted in your party. You have to be able to speak beyond your party."
They were positive ads, a departure from the bitter attacks that marked his campaign against Pederson. The ads, Logan said, were meant to reach beyond Kyl's GOP base to a group of voters who were not entrenched with either side but were seen as vulnerable to the Democratic message about a culture of corruption in Washington, D.C.
Pederson, too, sought support from unaffiliated voters. Although he once headed the Arizona Democratic Party, Pederson's ads stressed his independence and famously included the "Nobody's senator but ours" motto.
Pederson won the independent vote by a 50-41 margin, according to CNN exit polling, but it wasn't enough. Kyl cruised to re-election by nearly 10 percentage points.
"The advantage (Pederson) had among independents wasn't enough to offset the fact that there are more Republicans in the state and more Democrats defecting to the Republicans," pollster Merrill said.
The impact can be just as important with ballot measures.
Political consultant Joe Yuhas, who worked with both the Pederson campaign and the effort against Proposition 107, credited independent voters with the defeat of the ballot measure that would have banned same-sex marriage and prohibited local governments from recognizing domestic partnerships.
Yuhas said research conducted for the anti-107 campaign, Arizona Together, found that roughly three-quarters of Republicans supported the measure, while an equal percentage of Democrats opposed it.
Roughly two-thirds of independents opposed the proposal.
"Basically, the partisans canceled themselves out," Yuhas said, "so the election was decided by independents."
The 35-year-old Chandler resident is an independent. While the state's two major parties have added tens of thousands of registered voters since the 2000 general election, the ranks of the independents have soared by nearly 300,000.
Experts say independents had a huge impact on this month's election in Arizona and could soon be the dominant force in state politics. That would likely mean fundamental changes in how the major parties and political campaigns operate as they try to reach and win over voters who are often considered disengaged and unpredictable.
Independents "have doubled their numbers in 10 years, and they will continue to grow," said Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill. "At the current rate, it won't be long before they are the dominant group of voters in the state."
Since the 2004 general election, voters categorized by the state as "other" - almost entirely independents - were the only group to see their numbers grow. They now comprise one in four registered voters.
Eighty percent voted for Gov. Janet Napolitano, helping give her what she has described as a mandate for her middle-of-the-road approach to governing.
Meanwhile, considerably more state legislative races turned out to be competitive this year than expected, even in districts where Republicans or Democrats strongly outnumbered members of the opposing party. A possible explanation: the growth in the number of voters with no party affiliation.
While partisan voters, the loyal so-called "base," remain a campaign cornerstone, independents are increasingly being targeted. This election season, campaigns of all political stripes tailored their messages to reach them, and that investment is likely to only increase next time.
"I think it's very possible that by the time the 2010 election rolls around, independents could make up fully one-third of the (Arizona) electorate," said Phoenix political consultant Barry Dill, a longtime adviser to Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Outnumbered by registered Republicans, Democrats have aggressively pursued independents over the past decade. But the GOP, more than a million strong statewide, now is doing likewise.
"You'd be crazy if you didn't spend time and resources targeting independents," said Jake Logan, a Republican consultant who led Sen. Jon Kyl's successful re-election bid earlier this month. "Right now, they can make or break an election."
Such is the influence of voters like Scott Dunn.
"I've never voted a straight ticket," said Dunn, an employee of the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau. "I've never really been a joiner.
"I don't want to be a Republican. I don't want to be a Democrat."
No party labels
So who are the state's independent voters?First, they are unpredictable.
They tend to look over their ballots measure by measure, candidate by candidate, avoiding any underlying ideology. Example No. 1: Bethany Andrews. The 27-year-old Glendale resident and ASU student said she tends to vote based on key issues, such as her support for abortion rights. Negative campaigning turns her off.
"I believe in voting on the issues and the people and whatever platform they're running on," Andrews said.
Party labels? No big deal. Andrews, for example, cast her gubernatorial vote for Libertarian Barry Hess but voted for Democrat Jim Pederson for Senate.
For evidence of the influence of unaffiliated voters, just look at this month's results: Napolitano was re-elected in a walk, and Democrat Harry Mitchell upended six-term incumbent Congressman J.D. Hayworth in an election-night surprise. A ban on gay marriage backed by social conservatives failed, and a minimum-wage increase supported by liberal groups passed.
Several anti-illegal immigration measures put on the ballot by conservative legislators passed by a wide margin.
Scattershot? Conflicting? Absolutely, but they are the kind of mixed results you see when a huge chunk of the electorate is not tied to a particular ideology.
"They are unaffiliated with a party, so they are more open to changing their mind and weighing any one race based on issues," said Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University and director of its social research laboratory. "Often, it is the independents who are deciding races now, being more open-minded, weighing the individual merits of candidates or issues."
Of course, a more independent electorate does not necessarily mean a more educated one. Merrill noted that independent voters tend to be less politically informed and more easily swayed by campaign messages and ads.
"It's not this group of people that really studies the issues and goes back and forth before they head to the polls," Merrill said. "They, as a group, tend to be turned off by politics."
That political revulsion tends to depress their turnout numbers on Election Day. Nonetheless, the group's size and growth make it one of Arizona's biggest swing-voter blocs and a force that is impossible to ignore.
The wild card
While the numbers of unaffiliated voters are increasing across the nation, the increase has been even more rapid in Arizona.Arizona has been an open-primary state since 2004, meaning voters not affiliated with a political party can participate in primary elections. The change helped fuel the growth in independents because voters in states with closed primaries must join a party if they want to have a say in non-general elections.
While much has been made of Arizona's libertarian streak, the state's number of registered Libertarians has increased by only about 5,000 in six years. Arizona Libertarians number 17,446.
Partisan voters typically vote for candidates of their party between 70 and 80 percent of the time, Solop said. In many races, especially in competitive districts, that leaves independent voters as the wild card.
"The independents are playing a role in everything. They are a key factor and are a group that all candidates need to appeal to at this point in time," Solop said.
"It is not enough to be rooted in your party. You have to be able to speak beyond your party."
Decided by independents
For Sen. Jon Kyl's successful re-election campaign against Democrat Jim Pederson, targeting independents meant stressing his integrity, honesty and work ethic.They were positive ads, a departure from the bitter attacks that marked his campaign against Pederson. The ads, Logan said, were meant to reach beyond Kyl's GOP base to a group of voters who were not entrenched with either side but were seen as vulnerable to the Democratic message about a culture of corruption in Washington, D.C.
Pederson, too, sought support from unaffiliated voters. Although he once headed the Arizona Democratic Party, Pederson's ads stressed his independence and famously included the "Nobody's senator but ours" motto.
Pederson won the independent vote by a 50-41 margin, according to CNN exit polling, but it wasn't enough. Kyl cruised to re-election by nearly 10 percentage points.
"The advantage (Pederson) had among independents wasn't enough to offset the fact that there are more Republicans in the state and more Democrats defecting to the Republicans," pollster Merrill said.
The impact can be just as important with ballot measures.
Political consultant Joe Yuhas, who worked with both the Pederson campaign and the effort against Proposition 107, credited independent voters with the defeat of the ballot measure that would have banned same-sex marriage and prohibited local governments from recognizing domestic partnerships.
Yuhas said research conducted for the anti-107 campaign, Arizona Together, found that roughly three-quarters of Republicans supported the measure, while an equal percentage of Democrats opposed it.
Roughly two-thirds of independents opposed the proposal.
"Basically, the partisans canceled themselves out," Yuhas said, "so the election was decided by independents."
