There’s a certain snob appeal associated with self-proclaimed political independence from the two major parties. Independents often think of themselves as more discriminating people who “vote for the candidate, not the party” and even as freethinkers not bound by family tradition, ethnic group, or past loyalties to ride a donkey or an elephant.

Now a ton of research has established the inconvenient truth that most independents are no such thing; they vote habitually for one major party or the other but choose not to identify with it. A major Pew study in 2019 suggested that 81 percent of self-identified independents strongly lean this way or that. This is why many polls lump together “leaners” with partisans as pretty much the same kind of people.

It’s possible, of course, to argue that leaners are picking the lesser of two evils and would oscillate toward a third option if there were one. (It’s typically assumed that this would be a “moderate” or “centrist” option ideologically between the two parties, though in reality your average independent holds a hodgepodge of views, often “populist” in nature.) And thus occasionally we have the phenomenon of independent candidates who troll for votes among those alienated for one reason or another from the major parties or their candidates in particular contests.

I won’t go down the rabbit hole of state-level independent candidacies, other than to note that on the rare occasion they are successful, particularly when they........

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