- Gallup found a record 45% of U.S. adults identified as independents in 2025, the highest since it began tracking party affiliation in 1988.
- Younger generations drive the trend: More than half of Gen Z and Millennials identify as independents, far more than as Republicans or Democrats.
- Party balance shifted slightly toward Democrats in 2025, with Democrats plus Democrat-leaning independents at 47% versus 42% for Republicans and Republican leaners.
- Despite these shifts, both parties remain unpopular, and Gallup attributes recent changes largely to dissatisfaction with an incumbent president rather than growing support for Democrats.
Record numbers of U.S. adults identified as independents in 2025 instead of adhering to the Republican or Democratic parties, a recent Gallup report discovered.
According to the pollster, since Gallup began asking about political party identification in 1988, affiliation with independents has nearly always been higher than affiliation with Republicans or Democrats. In recent years, U.S. adults have become more likely than ever to say they identify as independents. The record high, 45%, was measured in 2025, while the previous record, 43%, was recorded in 2014, 2023, and 2024. Since 2011, independent affiliation has generally registered at 40% or higher, a phenomenon that did not occur prior to that year.
Gallup found that the increase of independent identity has been partly driven by younger generations. In 2025, more than half of Gen Z said they were independents, compared with 17% of the same generation who said they were Republicans and 27% who considered themselves Democrats. Similarly, more than half of Millennials also said they were independents, while about one in five said they were Republicans and roughly one in four said they were Democrats. Older generations — Gen X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation — were less likely to identify as independents.
Gallup asked respondents who said they identified as independents whether they lean more toward the Republican Party or Democratic Party, finding that between 2024 and 2025, independent support for Republicans dropped three points but rose three points in support of Democrats.
The total of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents measured at 42% in 2025, while the total of Democrats and independents who lean Democrat amounted to 47%, Gallup found. Gallup noted that last year’s party affiliation statistics “breaks a three-year stretch in which Republicans held an edge in party affiliation,” which closely mirrors party identification trends from President Donald Trump’s first term.
Gallup also found record-breaking polarization in regard to Americans’ political ideology, discovering that slightly more Americans say they are conservative or very conservative than say they are liberal or very liberal (35% vs. 28%) – the narrowest gap since 1992. The seven-point gap is the third time that the split between ideologies has been less than 10 points.
However, according to Gallup, this change doesn’t signify that Americans are starting to embrace the Democratic Party.
“In fact, favorable ratings of the Democratic Party are no better than those of the Republican Party, and are among the worst Gallup has recorded for the Democratic Party historically,” Gallup reported, adding that “these recent political shifts appear to be a consequence of one party’s association with an unpopular incumbent president.”
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