For at least three years, the Associated Press-Roper-GfK poll has been periodically asking respondents, “Do you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican, an independent, or none of these?” The September 2012 poll, taken between September 13-17, shows these results on page 34:
Democrat 31%
Independent 29%
Republican 22%
None of these 17%
don’t know 1%
refused, less than 1%
During the last three years, the range of Democrats has varied from a high of 35% to a low of 28%. The range of Republicans have been 32% to 18%. The range of independents has varied from 33% to 24%. The range of “none of these” is 7% to 20%.
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Gee – for the clueless independents —
which of the robot party hack gangs is the lesser of the 2 EVILS ???
leftwing communist Donkeys or rightwing fascist Elephants ???
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Will Civil WAR II start on election night Nov 6 ???
Stay tuned.
In the context of a opinion poll question, don’t “independent” and “none of these” mean the same thing? The list of answers should be “Republican, Democrat, another political party, or independent”. Or, if the pollster prefers, “Republican, Democrat, another political party, or no political party”. Those who answer “another party” should be asked to name it.
As a former survey researcher who once wrote a monograph on question wording, I think “no political party” might be less ambiguous than “independent”. That would require some pretesting, though.
Better still would be “Do you consider yourself a member [or supporter] of a political party or not?” If yes, ask “Which one?” Don’t name any of the possibilities. If a national poll would use this question format even once, we might learn something.