Story by W. H. Hayes
UNC student Leah Stone is registered Unaffiliated because they don’t want to act on party lines.
“I would rather vote based off of policy rather than party, and I think that being an independent specifically in North Carolina helps you be able to pick who you want to vote with in primaries.”
Stone voted in the Republican primary to sway policy in the direction she wanted. Her general election ballot, however, was mainly blue… save for a few Republican and third party votes.
“I don’t like the idea of certain Republican candidates who really were pushing to abolish, like, the public school system in North Carolina. That’s important to me. And I definitely was not feeling Mark Robinson this year.”
Being an independent doesn’t necessarily change your ideas, just your affiliation.
“As the presidencies go by, I just get more and more left leaning.”
For Mia Babson, a paralegal who graduated from UNC in 2023, being an independent voter is about feeling unrepresented, especially as a LGBTQ person.
“I’ve drifted more toward the left as I’ve just seen how the right has gotten more aggressive and how Democrats have kind of been ineffective.”
After Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump, the UNC Young Democrats have reflected on what went wrong. Kate Chapman, the organization’s secretary, blames the party’s loss on a lack of outreach.
The priority for our Executive Board this year is to connect and have those difficult conversations with all different groups from all different backgrounds across campus, because that’s something that I think we lacked last semester and that’s ultimately where the party went wrong.
The UNC College Republicans, though, think these young independents were unsatisfied with the democratic party.
“They just simply weren’t happy with whatever party was in power at the time.”
Preston Hill, the Vice President of the College Republicans, says Democrats took young, independent voters for granted
“They weren’t successful at answering a lot of the questions that they had regarding like the most, I guess the most hot button issues at the time – inflation, the war in Gaza was a big one.”
Both Chapman and Hill say the hardest part about swaying an up-for-grabs, independent voter is cutting through the noise of political polarization. I’m W. H. Hayes reporting.
