Independents gaining in numbers except not in elected office --- yet.

From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, this article on the rise of the independent voter, but the lack of corresponding independent elected officials. With a few exceptions, most notably Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont. 

What does this trend mean to the future of the parties? Harder to know who to target in campaigns for one thing.

Lack of party affiliation a popular idea, except in California’s election results

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Shedding political party labels is increasingly popular among California registered voters, but in casting ballots they are reluctant to pick candidates who do the same.

The trend played out in Tuesday’s election, with 32 candidates designated as “no party preference” competing in partisan state and federal races where the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advanced to a November runoff.

Only three — all in congressional races — finished second, and all face a heavily favored Democrat incumbent in the fall.



 
One of the three is James Hinton of Napa, a 39-year-old former poker player and political novice who beat another no party preference candidate for the runoff spot against Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. Thompson swept up 81 percent of the vote in the 5th Congressional District, which includes Santa Rosa.

There was no Republican candidate in any of the three races, opening the door for the unaffiliated candidates who were, in most other races, shunned by voters.

One of the few exceptions was Marianne Williamson, a 61-year-old best-selling New Age author with Hollywood connections, who finished fourth, with 13 percent of the vote, in an 18-person race for the Santa Monica House seat vacated by Rep. Henry Waxman.

There was pre-election chatter that Williamson, who raised $1.3 million, might crack the top two, said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican Party policy analyst.

But the winners were Republican Elan Carr, a deputy district attorney, and Ted Lieu, a Democratic state senator, both high-profile candidates with major party affiliations.

The moral of this L.A. political story is that voter disdain for the Democrat and Republican brands doesn’t hobble candidates from the two parties, Pitney said.

“You need parties to bring people together,” he said. “Every major democracy is based on political parties.”

No party preference candidates “need to get money and attention,” Pitney said, “but without a political party that’s hard to do.”

California voters are flocking to the NPP fold. In the May 19 report on party registration, 21 percent of voters were no party preference, up from 12 percent in 1998.

Over the same span, Democratic registration dropped from 47 percent to 43 percent and GOP numbers dropped more sharply from 36 percent to 28 percent.

Lake County has the third highest percentage of no-party-preference voters in the state; Mendocino the 10th highest. Sonoma has the fifth-highest percentage of Democratic voters.

In an era of bitter political infighting and legislative gridlock, it’s become “fashionable” among voters to forego party affiliation, said David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political scientist.
Voters lose nothing, since California in 2011 adopted a top-two, open primary system, allowing all voters to cast ballots for all the candidates in partisan races. The open primary system does not apply to candidates running for U.S. president, county central committee or local offices.

But no-party candidates are isolated, McCuan said, because there is no organized movement to match their brand.

“It’s like trying to sell your home without a Realtor,” McCuan said. “When you hold an open house, no one comes.”

Should an no-party-preference candidate gain traction, opponents from both major parties and special interest groups will “team up against him,” McCuan said.

Hinton, a newcomer, said he spent about $500 on his campaign against Thompson, a 16-year House veteran with a $1.5 million warchest and for the first time in his career no Republican opponent.
Hinton got 11 percent of the vote, edging out another no-party and first-time candidate, Douglas Van Raam, 44, of Martinez, who had 8 percent.

“Number one, I don’t have a party to run with,” Hinton said, when asked why he ran in the NPP column. “I got this far by myself.”

Lack of press coverage hampers candidates unaffiliated with a party, he said, noting that it “makes it hard for people to believe in them.”

No-party candidates were scarce in this week’s primary.

More than half of them —18 — were in 13 of the state’s 53 congressional races, and 12 got from 1 percent to 3 percent of the vote.

Three such candidates competed in the 20 state Senate races, four were in the 80 Assembly contests and seven were in the seven statewide office races, including five in the governor’s race.

There’s a contradiction, McCuan said, between voters’ personal affinity for the no-party-preference brand and their reluctance to back those candidates when it counts.

But the presumed independence of the no-party voter is somewhat misleading, he said.
Surveys and focus groups that ask those California voters about controversial issues, such as the Bible, guns, homosexuality and abortion, reveal that about one-third lean left and one-third lean right, lining up with the two major parties.

That leaves one-third who are ideological hybrids, a faction located between red and blue and known as “true purple,” McCuan said.