The GOP is less than 1/3 the voting population, so your disbelief is understandable and reasonable. The largest voting bloc is independent, by a significant margin. These articles are a bit misleading, as they try to fit everyone into GOP or DEM, but the Gallup poll showed, "Now, political independents (41%) greatly outnumber Republican (28%) and Democratic (28%) identifiers."
Are you confusing blank for not voting? Because only 1.7M people left their ballot blank. That’s different from not voting.
It’s hard to make judgments about non voters, by nature of how they didn’t vote. Some didn’t vote because they disliked Clinton, yes, but many others didn’t vote because they simply don’t care what happens, they think it won’t make a difference, their state is overwhelmingly in favour of one party (whether or not they support it), voting feels too difficult, to protest, because they’re lazy, or many other reasons.
“Independent” doesn’t mean that much. It’s a self applied label that is detached from now they actually vote. There’s plenty of people who consistently vote for only one party and call themselves independents, but for the purpose of discussions like this, they aren’t. When people talk about republicans in contexts like this, they don’t mean registered republicans or “self labeled republicans”. They mean people who support and especially people who vote for republicans.
Being less than 1/3 of the population is also kinda misleading when only 2/3 of the population even care enough to vote. Sure, it’s technically 1/3, but for all intents and purposes, it’s half. The 1/3 who don’t vote don’t matter. It doesn’t help people who are fighting for their rights that “technically, only 1/3 of the country support a lunatic”. By not voting, that 1/3 politically doesn’t exist. So it’s effectively half the country supporting Trump.
(There’s something to be said about how a good chunk of non voters are effectively supporting Trump by not voting even when things are this extreme, too. But it’s really hard to make assumptions about why people don’t vote, so I don’t think it’s worth focusing on except for the purpose of getting people to vote.)
The GOP is less than 1/3 the voting population, so your disbelief is understandable and reasonable. The largest voting bloc is independent, by a significant margin. These articles are a bit misleading, as they try to fit everyone into GOP or DEM, but the Gallup poll showed, "Now, political independents (41%) greatly outnumber Republican (28%) and Democratic (28%) identifiers."
https://news.gallup.com/poll/467897/party-preferences-evenly-split-2022-shift-gop.aspx
https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/poll-largest-percentage-americans-independents/
https://www.based-politics.com/2022/01/20/more-americans-identify-as-independent-than-gop-or-democrat-new-gallup-poll/
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/17/poll-americans-independent-republican-democrat
If “Left Blank” was a candidate in the 2016 election it would have beaten Trump and Hilary in several states.
Which is also a sign of how hilariously unpopular the Hil-Dog was.
Are you confusing blank for not voting? Because only 1.7M people left their ballot blank. That’s different from not voting.
It’s hard to make judgments about non voters, by nature of how they didn’t vote. Some didn’t vote because they disliked Clinton, yes, but many others didn’t vote because they simply don’t care what happens, they think it won’t make a difference, their state is overwhelmingly in favour of one party (whether or not they support it), voting feels too difficult, to protest, because they’re lazy, or many other reasons.
Independent just means republican that can feel shame.
Or a Democrat that holds a conservative position (like a anti-abortion dem)
“Independent” doesn’t mean that much. It’s a self applied label that is detached from now they actually vote. There’s plenty of people who consistently vote for only one party and call themselves independents, but for the purpose of discussions like this, they aren’t. When people talk about republicans in contexts like this, they don’t mean registered republicans or “self labeled republicans”. They mean people who support and especially people who vote for republicans.
Being less than 1/3 of the population is also kinda misleading when only 2/3 of the population even care enough to vote. Sure, it’s technically 1/3, but for all intents and purposes, it’s half. The 1/3 who don’t vote don’t matter. It doesn’t help people who are fighting for their rights that “technically, only 1/3 of the country support a lunatic”. By not voting, that 1/3 politically doesn’t exist. So it’s effectively half the country supporting Trump.
(There’s something to be said about how a good chunk of non voters are effectively supporting Trump by not voting even when things are this extreme, too. But it’s really hard to make assumptions about why people don’t vote, so I don’t think it’s worth focusing on except for the purpose of getting people to vote.)
The non-voters still matter because they can still choose to vote. They’re important and mobilizing them can make a difference.