I know this isn't the main takeaway from the article, but I'm highly suspect of the "independence" of voters claiming to be independent. This is merely anecdote, but many people I know who claim to be independent are really just "aspirationally-independent". The like to think of themselves as open-minded and independent, but when they vote, they vote one way, and one way only. Looking into it a bit, this is not uncommon: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/few-americans-who-ident... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/01/0....