The two-party system still dominates at the ballot box. And, as the 2024 election bore out, voters still chose a candidate from one of the major parties.
But the new reality is that voter registration rolls show that independent and third-party registration are on the rise.
In the past 25 years, the number of voters not affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican party has grown nearly 9%, according to Ballotpedia.
NBC News recently did an analysis of voter registration data. Its findings proved even more interesting. It found that as of this year, 32% of registered voters across dozens of states and territories chose not to affiliate with either of the major parties. That’s up 23% from 2000.
National exit polls support those numbers.
What’s behind it? People just aren’t happy with the big parties and politics in general.
Mary Anne Marsh, a political analyst from Massachusetts, put it this way in an interview with NBC News: “I think people are just disappointed in politics and disappointed in party politics.”
Maybe the “No Kings” protests are a sign that people can organize without a major party, and people are ready to take matters into their own hands.
Who is this coming at the expense of? The Democratic Party. The party’s share of registered voters was down 1½% between 2024 and 2025.
Where did the voters go? They registered as Independent and Republican.
Independents are growing more diverse as a voting bloc, both ideologically and demographically. About 56% of independents described themselves as “moderate” (rather than “conservative” or “liberal”) in 2024, up from 50% in 2012, according to an analysis of polls commissioned for NBC News by the bipartisan polling firms Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research Associates.
And 34% of independents were people of color, double the share from 2012.
This increase in unaffiliated voters is a major theme in American politics.
Back to that NBC News story, Michael Bitzer, a politics and history professor at Catawba College in North Carolina said in an interview, “The children of polarized politics that have known nothing but the two parties at loggerheads are probably making a pretty profound statement by saying, ‘We’re not going to register with either party.’”
Maybe the two big political parties need to rethink their strategies as a result and build for the future. Otherwise, political analysts expect the problem to worsen.
The New York Democratic mayoral primary also holds a big lesson for the Democratic Party nationally.
State legislator Zohran Mamdani’s stunning defeat of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a forceful challenge, was a massive shot in the arm for progressives. The message, according to analysts? The party’s elder statesmen need to step aside for a new generation of leaders.
If you look at Mamdani’s campaign and how it was run, he is an unapologetic progressive. He argued his pragmatism would best meet the moment. He is a democratic socialist at a time when many Democrats worry about whether that alienates them from swing voters. He is a critic of Israel’s war against Hamas, and that’s despite criticism from moderates in the party who accused him of stoking antisemitism.
Arguably, the primary is not a clear test. Some mitigating factors need to be considered. The biggest being Cuomo’s 2021 resignation as governor amid allegations of sexual misconduct and mismanagement during COVID.
One also has to consider that the people who voted in the NYC primary don’t really represent the swing-district and swing-state voters who determine who holds power in Washington, D.C.
The GOP knows that and is already trying to use it to their advantage.
Mainstream Democrats homed in on one message that Mamdani harped on: the economy! House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn said that resonated.
Jeffries, by the way, did not endorse anyone in the election. But he did say in an interview on “Morning Joe” that “the relentless focus on affordability had great appeal across the city of New York. He also clearly outworked, out-organized and out-communicated the opposition. So, when someone is successful at being able to do all three things at the same time, it’s usually going to work out.”
We all know one of the big problems for the Democrats has been a lack of effective messaging. So, going forward, they need something to latch on to.
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Parkland high school massacre survivor David Hogg is a Florida activist and former national party official. His take on Mamdani’s victory: “The people have spoken — and they’re saying that the establishment is cooked.”
But look, the New York City mayoral race isn’t over. It was just the primary. There’s more to be written. Still, given the messages from it and what’s happening with voter registration, it’s clear that the Democrats must do something different.
News4JAX political analyst and head of the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute Rick Mullaney joins me for this week’s Politics & Power episode.
Watch at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. Tuesday on News4JAX+ or catch it any time on demand on News4JAX+, News4JAX.com or our YouTube channel.