More Americans identified as political independents in 2025, a recent Gallup poll found.
A record-high 45% of U.S. adults identified as political independents last year, surpassing the 43% measured in 2014, 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, equal shares of U.S. adults — 27% each — identified as either Democrats or Republicans, according to the poll.
In most years since Gallup began regularly conducting its polls by telephone in 1988, independents have been the largest political group. However, the independent percentage has increased markedly in the past 15 years, typically registering 40% or higher, a level not reached prior to 2011.
Party Identification By Birth Cohort
The recent increase in independent identification is partly attributable to younger generations of Americans (millennials and Generation X) continuing to identify as independents at relatively high rates as they have gotten older, Gallup said.
In contrast, older Americans have been less likely to identify as independents over time. Generation Z, like previous generations before them when they were young, identify disproportionately as political independents.
In 2025, majorities of Gen Z adults and millennials identified as political independents, as did more than four in 10 Gen X adults. One-third or less of baby boomers and Silent Generation adults were politically independent.
Bottom Line
Importantly, these party shifts do not indicate that Americans are warming to the Democratic Party, Gallup said. 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.
Rather, as in 2022 through 2024, these recent political shifts appear to be a consequence of one party’s association with an unpopular incumbent president (the Democrats with Biden and now Republicans with Trump). Negative evaluations of the president’s performance appear to persuade a subset of Americans, primarily political independents who have weaker attachments to either party, to side with the opposition party, according to Gallup.
The 2025 findings are based on interviews with more than 13,000 U.S. adults throughout the year.
