Independents, voters who don’t identify with a political party, are the fastest growing part of Florida’s electorate.
Last year for the first time, their numbers surpassed those of Democrats in Lee and Collier counties. They’ve become the second-largest part of the electorate in Broward, Miami-Dade, Okaloosa and Osceola counties as well. They’re easily out-pacing the growth of the major parties, especially in South Florida and urban areas such as Orlando, and if you add the small number of voters registered with minor parties to their ranks, they now outnumber either the Democrat or Republican parties in 13 counties.
Independents skew younger and are more ethnically diverse than their partisan counterparts. But as a group that makes up nearly a quarter of Florida’s 12 million voters, their personal characteristics are as diverse as their beliefs, which span the political spectrum from liberal to conservative and everywhere in between.