The single most important development in Wave 2 is a real, measurable shift on the right: Republican openness to a strong independent candidate jumped from 62.7% to 70.3% — a +7.6-point move, the largest change anywhere in the survey.
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This is not sampling noise. A formal test of the difference clears the conventional 95% confidence threshold (z = 2.09, p ≈ 0.04), and the gain shows up in both intensity tiers — "very likely" rose (20.5% → 23.4%) alongside "somewhat likely" (42.2% → 46.9%). Republicans had been the most party-anchored group in the National Independent Candidate Awraeness Poll Wave 1, trailing the field by 9–16 points.
In Wave 2 they've caught up.
The strategic implication is important. In Wave 1, the case for an independent had an obvious soft spot — it was strong among Democrats and independents but noticeably weaker among Republicans. That soft spot has closed. Openness is now a genuine, tightly bunched majority across all three groups: Independents 75.9%, Democrats 72.4%, Republicans 70.3% — a spread of just ~6 points.
An independent candidacy that once had to be built primarily on the center-left now has a credible, cross-partisan base of support that reaches deep into the Republican electorate. The appetite for an alternative is no longer a phenomenon of one side; it is broad-based.
Around that headline, the rest of the market held remarkably firm. Overall openness to a strong independent sits at 70.8% (was 69.5%), while only 6.3% (unchanged) would pick an independent on the generic ballot for their district today. The 70-to-6 gap between appetite and action is essentially identical wave-over-wave. Awareness, framing, and vote intention all moved within the margin of error, which is itself a finding: this is a durable structure in public opinion, not a one-poll blip.
The Republican move is what turns "a large market"into "a large, evenly balanced, cross-partisan market." Openness is again a genuine majority everywhere, but the story of this wave is where it grew: Independents 75.9%, Democrats 72.4%, Republicans 70.3%. In Wave1, Republicans were the outlier, trailing by roughly 9–16 points; in Wave 2 the three groups are within ~6 points of one another. Whatever else moved, the ceiling for a credible independent did not come down — and the coalition behind it is now meaningfully broader on the right than it was before. For a movementthat needs support from voters who feel unrepresented by both parties,this is the most encouraging single number in the dataset.
The awareness picture improved marginally but not decisively. Those unaware of any independent candidate fell from 41.3% to39.6%, and active followers ticked up from 8.7% to 10.0%. Crucially, the "interested, but haven't heard anything" segment is unchanged at 22.6% — and this wave, 81% of that group is open to a strong independent (up from 76% in Wave 1). It remains the single most actionable audience in the data: large, persuadable, and simply under-informed rather than opposed.
Positive framing held at 45.8% (was 45.7%) and negative framing at 35.4% (was 34.1%) — both flat. Within the positives,"fresh start" edged up and "new ideas" edged down, a wording preference rather than a directional shift. The "spoiler"reflex did not intensify. The obstacle is the same size it was; it simply hasn't been dismantled yet.
Party identification moved a few points (Republican 32.7% → 35.0%, Democrat 35.9% →32.3%), and Trump's job rating slipped modestly (approve 40.2% → 38.5%,disapprove 56.2% → 57.4%). Yet the generic congressional ballot barely budged (D 42.1% / R 37.3%), and the independent share on it held exactly at 6.3%. The takeaway: sample composition and mood shifted at the margins, but the fundamental two-party split and the suppressed independent vote are stable.
The new Pride-participation item is the richest new material in the survey. 17.3% of adults did something to mark Pride Month in June. As expected, participation skews Democratic (27.6%), young (32.4% of 18–29-year-olds), and toward Trump disapprovers (25.1% of those who strongly disapprove). But the more surprising and strategically useful finding is who else shows up:
- Nearly half of all Pride participants are not Democrats — 22.5% are independents, 20.2% are Republicans, and 5.8% are undecided.
- Pride participants are more open to independents (75.7% vs 69.8%), more likely to use positive framing (53.2%vs 44.3%), and less likely to hold the "spoiler" view (16.8% vs21.5%) than non-participants.
- They are markedly more politically engaged: 56%are already following or aware of independent candidates, versus 38% of the sample overall.
- Even the cross-pressured subgroups lean in: the 35 Republicans who participated in Pride are 74% open to a strong independent, and Pride-participating independents are 79% open and 72% positive in their framing.
In short, the people most likely to celebrate Pride are disproportionately the same civically active, anti-duopoly, independent-curious voters this project has been tracking — and a meaningful slice of them sit outside the Democratic column. That overlap is the basis for a standalone analysis.
Wave 2 delivers one clear headline and one steady backdrop.The headline: Republican openness to a strong independent surged +7.6 points to 70.3% — a statistically significant move (p ≈ 0.04) that closes the largest party gap from Wave 1 and makes the independent market genuinely cross-partisan for the first time in this tracking.
The backdrop: everything else held firm — the same~70% overall appetite, the same 6% conversion, the same awareness bottleneck, the same unbroken spoiler tax — confirming the opportunity is durable rather than a fluke. And the new Pride data surfaces a concrete, cross-partisan, high-engagement cohort — nearly half of it non-Democratic — that maps closely onto the persuadable independent-curious universe. The through-line: the appetite for an alternative is broad, stable, and now reaching further into the Republican electorate than before.
Methodology: AlphaROC conducted this survey of n = 1,000U.S. adults on behalf of Independent Center / Independent Center Voice from July 13–14, 2026. All interviews were conducted online. Survey invitations were distributed randomly, with demographic balances aligned to general population benchmarks. Estimated margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at the 95%confidence level for the full sample; subgroups carry wider margins. Wave-over-wave differences at or below ~3 points (full sample) or ~5 points (subgroups) are within sampling noise. Wave-over-wave figures should be read as directional.