Poll: True independents say wrong track, won’t pick a party

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(The Center Square) – Seven in 10 true independents say the country is headed the wrong way, a new The Center Square poll found, but most won’t commit to either major party’s candidate.

The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll found 70% of true independents say things in the country are heading in the wrong direction, against 13% who say it's going in the right direction. True independents are voters who, asked whether they lean toward one of the major parties, say neither. Among all registered voters, 58% said wrong direction and 31% said right direction.

The pessimism tracks what voters say about their own finances. Forty-one percent said their income stayed about the same while expenses increased, 15% said their income rose but expenses rose faster, and 15% said their income decreased. Inflation and price increases are the issue voters rank most important, the first choice of 21%.

Asked how they would vote if the congressional election were held today, true independents split 22% for the Democratic candidate, 12% for the Republican, 22% for someone else and 44% not sure. Overall, voters backed the Democratic candidate 47% to 42%.

True independents are also unsold on which party to trust with the economy. Sixty-one percent said neither party, against 13% who picked Democrats and 9% who picked Republicans. Among all voters, the split was 43% Democrats, 40% Republicans and 14% neither.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said wrong direction 82% to 12%. Republicans and Republican leaners said right direction 54% to 32%.

Aidan Johnson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said voters are turning on President Donald Trump and House Republicans “because they raised the price of everything, breaking their promise to lower costs.” He told The Center Square that Democrats are “working hard to offer a vision that actually puts hardworking families first.”

Johnson did not answer whether the committee’s own polling shows the same undecided share among independents, or how Democrats plan to win voters who have decided the country is going badly but haven’t decided which party to back.

“Underestimating President Trump and this administration have proven the experts and pollsters wrong every single time,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told The Center Square.

Ingle pointed to the administration’s tax cuts, lower prescription drug prices, border enforcement and job growth, and said Trump “is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.” He did not address the poll’s findings on independents or say what the president expects will change how those voters see the direction of the country before Nov. 3.

On Wednesday at a rally in Kalispell, Montana, Trump told supporters “your prices have come way down” and put recent inflation at 1.7%, against what he called 19% under former President Joe Biden. Hours earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 3.7% over the 12 months ending in September, up from 3.4% in August, with gasoline up 34.2% over the year. Inflation had risen by more than 9% in the summer of 2022 during the Biden administration, the highest level in 40 years.

Trump also told the crowd that “tariffs don’t cause inflation.” New York Fed economists estimated this month that a 10% tariff on all imports would raise consumer goods prices 2.6% within a year, and found that nearly 90% of the 2025 tariffs were passed through to U.S. import prices rather than absorbed by foreign exporters.

Trump has promised to send every adult citizen $5,000 if Republicans hold Congress, a payment that would cost about $1.2 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and that tariff revenue would take nearly a decade to cover the cost.

The National Republican Congressional Committee did not respond to questions from The Center Square about whether its own data shows independents moving the same way, or how Republican candidates win independents in districts where most voters say the country is headed the wrong way.

The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights from Oct. 5-7, surveying 2,527 registered U.S. voters. Respondents included 1,136 Republicans, 1,171 Democrats and 220 true independents. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.95 percentage points, but higher for subgroups.