Consultant: Independents Sunk GOP in 2022
Former Senator Darren Bailey and former President Donald Trump at a rally last June. Data shows independents rejected Republicans they associated with Bailey and Trump.
Last month, we told you about a post-mortem poll by suburban Republican consultant Collin Corbett trying to pinpoint why the GOP took such a beating in November. His poll showed voters were most concerned about threats to democracy and abortion rights.
Now that final results from the general election are available, Corbett says actual data shows it was independents that sunk Republican candidates.
(Disclosure: Corbett and I have worked a couple of campaigns together, a firm he’s associated with does our polling, and we’re friends, even though he’s a White Sox fan.)
Statewide data isn’t available yet, so his firm analyzed local data, which was a little unclear. From his report:
Getting turnout data proved harder than expected. You can’t get the data statewide for still several more months, so we had to go to individual county & city election authorities, some of whom move more quickly than others, and a few who have head-scratchingly suspect data (we won’t name names). We then had to supplement the voter data with demographic information for each voter. Our poor data team needs a vacation after this project.
Here’s their raw data.
Some highlights:
Statewide turnout was down 5% from 2018.
Turnout among Republicans was even, especially outside Cook County. In the collar counties, Republican turnout was down 4%, and in the rest of the state it was down 2%.
But, GOP voter turnout dropped by 10% in suburban Cook County and 13% in the city of Chicago.
Turnout increased among independent voters. (6% increase in the city of Chicago, 3% increase in the collars, and 5% increase in the rest of the state.)
Independents had a bigger impact than prior years. The independent vote share increased nearly 3% from 2018 to 2022.
Corbett notes that is a 30% increase in the number of persuadable swing voters you typically see in an election.
“This crystalizes the problem for Republicans in 2022. Reaching the independent universe is difficult and expensive, because so few of these voters participate, so you end up having to contact huge numbers of people to find the handful who are actually going to vote,” Corbett wrote in his analysis. “This takes significant resources, the funding to go up on broadcast & cable TV and [can] dramatically increase your mail and digital advertising universes. Democrats had that funding in 2022. Republicans didn’t.”
The general perception leading out of election day was that female turnout likely ballooned in the wake of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, but Corbett says female turnout actually dropped in 2022. Black and Hispanic voters showed “historically” low turnout, according to the analysis. It all adds up with the historically low support for GOP gubernatorial Darren Bailey and former President Donald Trump in the city of Chicago and suburbs.
But, it all came down to independents.
“2022 proved if you can’t win independents in Illinois, you won’t win elections,” Corbett said.
Now, the question for Republicans as they recruit for 2024 (a presidential election year is traditionally more difficult for the GOP), the question is: what kind of Republican candidate appeals to independents?
