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For a business to be successful, it must identify its customers. After all, only some people are interested, and it is the business owner's responsibility to figure out who their audience is. It’s much the same in politics. Some voters will never vote for you, others will always vote for you, but most are open to listening and considering your pitch.
However, you wouldn’t know that in today’s hyperpartisan political climate, where both candidates spend most of their time talking to the fringes and ignoring the majority of us.
Who, exactly, are the majority of voters in America today? Independents. While Republicans and Democrats can barely cobble together a quarter of the electorate each, just over half of us do not affiliate with either party. Yet, we’re routinely ignored as if we don’t matter.
Ignoring us, however, is not a winning strategy. In fact, both parties already know this. According to exit polling, Donald Trump won independents by 4 percent in 2016, and Joe Biden won independents by 13 percent in 2020. Capturing the majority in the middle is a prerequisite for winning this November, but neither party is trying to win us over. Instead, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris spend their time dishing out red meat to their party faithful.
Nevertheless, Trump and Harris have a chance to rectify that at the first debate on September 10th in Philadelphia.
The first debate is the perfect opportunity for each candidate to look beyond their base and take advantage of the national stage. Unlike the typical fundraiser or rally, September 10th is the first chance for Trump and Harris to define themselves and their agenda to the American people–all of us.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Trump and Harris actually spoke to the voters who will decide this election rather than just to the ideological extremes in their parties?
In addition to being ignored, the majority of us in the middle share many things in common. We are turned off by partisanship and negative attacks. By two-thirds, we favor candidates who can work across the aisle. We want competency and common-sense solutions. Over half of us want more choices in politics. We don’t care what you do in your personal life. We value finding the proper balance among competing interests.
Outgoing Independent Senator Joe Manchin (WV) sums it up well, “I’m just trying to find a balance all the time. You run your life from the middle. Can’t we run our country from the middle?”
We’ve heard nothing close to Senator Manchin’s sentiments this campaign season. Quite the contrary. It’s been largely, “Don’t vote for him or else we’ll lose our Democracy,” versus “Don’t vote for her, she’s a Communist.” This is precisely the kind of rhetoric that turns off independents.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any better when the candidates talk about policy. Trump continues to threaten mass deportations and high tariffs, while Harris offers “free” money and price controls.
Even their vice presidential picks appeal to their party’s fringes. The Wall Street Journal called Harris’ pick, Tim Walz, “the most liberal choice.” Walz’s track record as Governor of Minnesota earned him an “F” on Cato’s fiscal policy report card for his “big government approach to fiscal policy.”
Trump’s pick, J.D. Vance, is just as “out there” policy-wise. Vance openly wants to “seize the administrative state for our purposes” and “seize the assets” of non-profit organizations that he opposes. And like his boss, he wants to use tariffs, taxes, and subsidies to protect American interests from competition and deport millions of undocumented workers.
Rather than bombastically promoting extreme policies like price controls and mass deportations, independents want adult conversations on things like affordability, entrepreneurship, and entitlements. I suspect we see one and not the other because one makes headlines and gets clicks, while our issues—real-life, everyday issues—lack the sex appeal of, say, threatening to seize the opposition’s assets.
The current political landscape is hostile to the majority of us in the middle. There is no sign of common-sense solutions that could work across the aisle, and there is no sense that either party is seeking a balance between our disparate interests. Worse, only 19% of us feel our voices and opinions are being heard by our elected representatives.
I don’t expect Trump or Harris to have a change of heart and spend any of their allotted time talking to us, but if they do, it will sound like just over half of the electorate tuning in to listen with an open mind.
Adam Brandon is a contributor to the Independent Center.
