Political parties want independent voters’ support. But are they prepared to offer them belonging without demanding their allegiance?
A woman once asked me to carry a message to my fellow Democrats.
She was a Democrat, but her husband was an independent. They cared about many of the same issues. Yet when Democrats learned her husband was unaffiliated, something changed.
He was treated differently. Sometimes he felt dismissed. Sometimes people questioned his values or commitment. At times, she said, he felt ostracized by the very people who would later ask for his vote.
Stuart C. Lord
Her message was simple: Tell Democrats what this feels like.
I thought about her request again after attending my local Democratic precinct caucus in Boulder County. The people gathered there were thoughtful, engaged and deeply concerned about the future of democracy. Neighbors discussed candidates, compared priorities and sometimes disagreed, but did so respectfully. It was the kind of face-to-face civic exchange that has become too rare — a reminder that democracy is not only something we defend in the abstract. It is something we practice with one another.
During the conversation, however, a concern surfaced that reached beyond our precinct: Independents sometimes feel unwelcome in Democratic spaces.
That admission should stop us.
Political parties routinely describe unaffiliated voters as people to be persuaded, mobilized or won. Campaigns devote enormous resources to reaching them before elections. Far less attention is given to what these voters experience when they enter political gatherings or whether they are welcomed when their support is not immediately needed.
“We appear eager to count independents without always being willing to listen to them.”
There is something morally dissonant about asking people to help preserve democracy while making them feel full participation requires a party label. The woman who spoke to me was not asking Democrats to abandon their convictions. Her husband did not need to be converted into a Democrat. He needed to be treated as a citizen whose judgment, presence and dignity mattered.
We appear eager to count independents without always being willing to listen to them.
Independence is not indecision
Part of the problem begins with how we interpret the word “independent.”
We sometimes hear it as another word for undecided — as though unaffiliated voters are standing between two parties because they lack sufficient information, conviction or courage to choose. But many independents are not politically confused. They know what they value. What they refuse to do is grant any party permanent ownership of their judgment.
Their votes may change because candidates, circumstances and parties change. That is not necessarily inconsistency. It may be discernment.
An independent voter may support a Democrat in one election, a Republican in another and neither when both fail the test of conscience. Some lean toward one party but remain unaffiliated because they want the freedom to criticize it. Others believe no party fully reflects their understanding of the common good.
“These voters are not standing outside democracy.”
These voters are not standing outside democracy. They may be taking its responsibilities especially seriously.
Political parties naturally value loyalty. They need people willing to organize, contribute and work toward shared goals. But democratic citizenship requires a different and sometimes higher loyalty: The willingness to place conscience, country and community above the success of any political organization.
Political independence is not always the absence of conviction. Sometimes it is the refusal to surrender conviction to a party label.
The largest coalition without a party
The woman’s concern is not about a politically insignificant group. Gallup reported a record 45% of American adults identified as political independents in 2025. By comparison, 27% identified as Democrats and the same percentage as Republicans.
Independents are now the nation’s largest political identity — but not a unified political coalition. They do not share one ideology, agenda or reason for remaining unaffiliated. Many lean consistently toward one major party, while others move between parties or reject both. Pew Research Center has found most independents lean Democratic or Republican, even while declining to adopt the party’s name.
That complexity does not make their independence meaningless. It makes it more revealing.
Political parties often discuss these citizens as a strategic category. Campaigns identify the issues likely to persuade them and measure how many can be turned out. Independents become the movable portion of an electoral equation — the people who may determine which party wins after each has secured its base.
But what if they are more than the electorate’s undecided remainder?
What if the growth of independent identification represents a judgment about the parties themselves — their polarization, their demands for loyalty and their inability to make millions of citizens feel fully represented?
Nearly half of American adults are declining to give either major party their unqualified allegiance. That is not political background noise. It is a message. The question is whether either party is prepared to hear it.
When belonging becomes conditional
The contradiction becomes most visible during election season. Independent voters are welcomed as volunteers, donors and coalition partners. Their support is described as essential. But when they enter partisan spaces without adopting the party label, they may encounter a quieter message: You can help us, but we are not certain you are one of us.
That is conditional belonging.
Political parties need committed members. They cannot organize effectively without shared principles, structures and goals. But a party that speaks of building a broad coalition must decide whether that coalition has room for people whose support does not include permanent allegiance.
A big tent cannot simply mean gathering more people beneath it and expecting everyone to accept the same label. It must allow people to bring questions and disagreements the party does not control. Otherwise, the tent is large only in capacity, not in spirit.
This is not solely a Democratic failure. Republicans also court independent voters while demanding loyalty from those who enter their political spaces. But I am speaking directly to Democrats because I am a Democrat and have served in local party leadership. Accountability begins with the community to which we belong.
“If we want unaffiliated voters to stand beside us in defense of democracy, we must make room for them without first requiring them to become us.”
We cannot condemn political conformity elsewhere while quietly practicing our own version of it. A coalition is not genuinely broad if people may enter only after exchanging independence for acceptance. If we want unaffiliated voters to stand beside us in defense of democracy, we must make room for them without first requiring them to become us.
Civic hospitality
What would a different political culture require?
It could begin with civic hospitality — the deliberate practice of welcoming people into public life without first testing their partisan identity.
Hospitality does not mean avoiding disagreement, weakening convictions or pretending consequential differences do not exist. It means recognizing that another person’s dignity is not determined by whether that person accepts our political label. It means treating people as participants before treating them as prospects.
For political organizations, civic hospitality could be practiced in tangible ways. Invite independents into conversations before platforms and priorities have been settled. Ask what they see that party members may be missing. Welcome their questions without interpreting every disagreement as disloyalty. Allow someone to support a Democratic candidate — or a Republican one — without assuming that support constitutes an oath of permanent allegiance.
This also is a spiritual concern. Faith communities long have spoken about welcoming the stranger, making room at the table and recognizing the worth of people outside familiar boundaries. Yet those same communities can allow partisan identity to become another test of fellowship. Political agreement then begins to determine who is trusted, heard or treated as morally serious.
“Belonging should not require self-erasure.”
Belonging should not require self-erasure. Neither churches nor political parties should ask people to surrender their capacity for moral discernment as the price of admission.
Civic hospitality begins when we welcome people for the judgment they bring, not merely for the vote we hope to receive.
The woman who spoke to me was not asking Democrats to dilute their convictions. She was asking us to demonstrate them.
Her husband should not have to join a party to be treated as though he belongs in democracy. Neither should anyone else. Democracy needs strong parties organized around shared purposes. It also needs citizens willing to question every party, including the one they supported last.
Independent voters should not have to choose between political participation and personal integrity. Their refusal to offer permanent allegiance provides a necessary reminder: Parties exist to serve citizens. Citizens do not exist to serve parties.
The question for every political organization is no longer simply whether it can win independent voters. The deeper question is whether it can respect their independence.
Stuart C. Lord is a Christian minister, former university president, leadership scholar and civic leader based in Boulder County, Colo. He serves as volunteer director of leadership and strategic initiatives for the Boulder County Democratic Party, leads Y Solve Foundry and founded the Declaration of Respect, an initiative advancing ethical leadership, nonviolence and community accountability in policing. He is a member of Pine Street Baptist Church in Boulder.