Younger voters aren't happy with either party and are identifying as independents, expert says
Fox News contributor Karl Rove discusses the rise of registered independents in America on 'America Reports.'
Here's what we're not saying out loud: independent voters aren't independent at all. They're just angry.
Forty-five percent of Americans now identify as political independents. That's a record. It beat the 43% we saw in 2023. But here's the thing — these people aren't sitting in some enlightened middle ground. They're out of the fray because both parties have let them down so badly that rejecting the label feels like the only honest option left.
This isn't about ideology. This is rage dressed up as a polling category.
And it's remaking American politics in real time.
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Nearly half of all voters are independents and they agree on one thing -- the status quo isn't working. (Paul Richards/AFP via Getty Images)
Look at the actual numbers: Democrats and Republicans both poll in the low 30s for approval. Both of them. That's not a fight — that's two teams losing to an empty field.
Seventy-three percent of Americans say they're dissatisfied with the political system itself. That's not frustration. That's people withdrawing consent. That's a legitimacy crisis.
Here's what matters: these voters don't hate politics. They hate how politics is actually done right now. They're not looking for someone to manage the system better. They're looking for someone to blow it all up and build something radically different.
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Everybody keeps saying independents are swing voters. Moderates. The tie-breaker in elections.
Wrong.
Most independents hold strong views. They're not middle-of-the-road people. They’re people. They're people who gave up on their party because that party gave up on them.
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Democrats who couldn't stomach the Democratic Party anymore. Republicans tired of what the Republican Party became.
Zohran Mamdani delivers a victory speech at a mayoral election night watch party, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)
They're not available to be persuaded on incrementalism. They're available to be inspired by a complete break from the past.
That door is wide open.
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When people get this angry, they don't look for a compromise candidate. They look for a movement.
Movements need three things: a message, a messenger and a belief that this person or party will do things entirely differently.
This isn't about ideology. This is rage dressed up as a polling category.
That combination is devastating to the establishment. Because it doesn't matter if the message comes from the right or the left.
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A self-described socialist wins in arguably the most capitalist city in the world. A political outsider with no traditional credentials wins as a Republican not just once, but twice. Progressive activists push Democrats further left. Right-wing populists push the GOP further right.
What do these have in common? None of them were supposed to win. None fit the establishment playbook. None promised to work within the system. They all promised to disrupt it.
And the 45% of independents watched and saw something the establishment missed: proof that the rules could be broken. Proof that someone didn't have to accept the traditional way of doing things. Proof that authenticity and disruption could actually beat polish and procedure.
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So, they started looking for their own version of it.
Here's what should terrify both party establishments: the hunger isn’t ideological. It’s structural.
It's not about whether you're a socialist or a nationalist. It's about whether you're going to operate by the rules of a system that already failed people, or reject the rules entirely.
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Independents aren't looking for Republicans or Democrats to do things slightly better. They're looking for someone to do things completely differently. To make decisions based on what actually needs to happen, not what the party manual says should happen.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attend a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., May 30, 2025. (REUTERS/Nathan Howard)
That message works on the left. It works on the right. It works anywhere people feel abandoned by institutions.
The populist wave isn't about policy. It's about permission.
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Permission to believe that things don't have to work the way they've always worked. Permission to think that someone outside the system might actually be better than someone inside it. Permission to vote your rage instead of your resignation.
And that permission is contagious.
Seventy-three percent of Americans say they're dissatisfied with the political system itself. That's not frustration. That's people withdrawing consent. That's a legitimacy crisis.
The moment voters see it work — see an outsider actually win, see someone break the rules and survive — they start looking for it everywhere. They ask: "Who else is willing to blow this up? Who else actually gets how broken this is?"
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Establishment politicians offer more of the same with slightly different words.
Populist movements offer the feeling that everything is about to change. Guess which one people are choosing.
Now here's the cutting part: the entire political establishment from both parties is equally vulnerable. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have figured out that the 45% have tasted something different. They've seen it work. They know what disruption actually looks like.
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So, they're not going back to the old rules. They're waiting for the next authentic messenger. The person who understands that the message isn't "we'll manage the system better." The message is "the system needs to be rebuilt, and I'm genuinely willing to do it differently." This is why populism keeps winning.
Not because it has better ideas. Because it offers something the establishment can't: the genuine belief that this person isn't trapped inside the broken machinery. That they'll actually make decisions based on what needs to happen, not what the system says is possible.
When you're part of an institution, you're limited by that institution. When you're outside it, you're not. Voters can feel the difference between someone trying to work within the system and someone actually willing to blow it up.
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Right now, the only people offering to blow it up are the ones winning.
Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot speaks during the 1992 Presidential Debates. (Photo by Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Here's where the 45% are actually going:
They're going toward any candidate or movement that can credibly claim they won't play by the old rules. That's it. That's the entire appeal.
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It doesn't matter if that person is a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn't matter what specific policies they promise. What matters is that they're not the establishment. That they're authentically something new. That they're willing to operate outside the machinery.
The party that produces that person next doesn't just win an election. They capture a generation of voters who have already decided the old way is dead.
Now here's the cutting part: the entire political establishment from both parties is equally vulnerable. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have figured out that the 45% have tasted something different.
The other party becomes the museum of yesterday's politics.
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The real story of the 45% isn't about the middle. It's about the hunger for authenticity and disruption overwhelming the traditional structures that contain politics.
It's about voters saying: "We're done. We want something completely different."
And every establishment politician who offers "more of the same but better" only confirms what those voters already believe: the system is broken, and nobody inside it knows how to fix it.
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