Independents growing in numbers, threaten parties

New Mexico is one of the seven states with the fastest growing populations of voters registering independent of a political party, according to the New York Times.

New Mexico is joined by Arizona, the state with the fastest growing population, along with New Hampshire, Florida, Maryland, California and Nevada.

In Arizona, the number of independents has doubled in the last decade and now accounts for more than 25 percent of all registered voters. In New Mexico, the number is about 15 percent, but it’s about 20 percent in Doña Ana County.

According to the Times, both parties are losing ground to independents, and the parties are working hard to figure out how those people will vote. Independents, it turns out, are quite an independent bunch and are hard to predict.

Go figure.

In Republican states in the West, the trend has benefited Democratic candidates, according to the Times. You could assume that in traditionally Democratic states, the trend leads to the election of more Republican candidates.

In New Mexico, for example, we have an independent group advocating for the election of more Republicans to statewide office and more Democrats to the U.S. Congress to lessen one-party dominance of the state by Democrats and Congress by Republicans.

Experts predict that the independent population will continue to grow, which will lead to more competitive races from the local to the national level.

Sounds good to me. The fewer people who vote straight party ticket, the better.

Imagine an electorate that was 30-40 percent independent. Those people could, in theory, elect a third-party or independent candidate despite the best efforts of both political parties. This trend is healthy because it will force both parties to think twice, if they value survival, about the importance they place on corporate money instead of voters.