The NCS poll conducted by SSRS was designed to supply a deep-dive take a look at the several types of independents that make up this vital group in American politics.
The survey was conducted each on-line and by phone from August 21 by way of September 1. The 2,077 adults who took the ballot had been chosen from two pattern sources – the SSRS Opinion Panel and a listing of registered voters, together with some who had beforehand taken a NCS survey conducted in April. The survey included 1,006 political independents, outlined as individuals who stated they had been independents or didn’t determine with both main political get together. The pattern was designed to incorporate a bigger than common variety of political independents with the intention to get a extra dependable image of their views. It was then weighted to partisan benchmarks obtained from NCS’s May 2025 nationwide survey so that every get together represents its correct share throughout the full grownup outcomes. The full pattern was additionally weighted to demographic and different benchmarks to make sure that it’s consultant of the grownup inhabitants.
Independents’ solutions to the survey questions had been mixed to create 5 totally different scales assessing the depth of respondents’ connections to the Democratic and Republican events, their degree of political engagement, their confidence within the political system, the extent to which they really feel represented by the political system and their diploma of openness to each Democrats and Republicans. Those scales had been used as a part of a statistical method known as Okay-means cluster evaluation – which teams collectively respondents with comparable solutions throughout all 5 scales into separate teams – to create the 5 ensuing subgroups of independents.
The venture took inspiration from a 2007 Washington Post/KFF/Harvard School of Public Health venture which additionally segmented political independents utilizing comparable methods. Several questions from the 2007 survey had been repeated within the new ballot. Three of the ensuing teams within the new venture are just like these present in 2007. The different two are fairly totally different, possible reflecting the numerous modifications within the American political local weather over that point.
Results for the complete pattern have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 share factors. Among the pattern of 1,006 independents, the error margin is +/-4.2 factors. The margin of sampling error for outcomes among the many 5 subgroups of independents ranges from +/-7.9 share factors to +/-10.7 factors.