Most independents have strong political beliefs, they just don't necessarily align neatly with the parties. Many are single issue voters or subscribe to non-cen

Most independents have strong political beliefs, they just don't necessarily align neatly with the parties. Many are single issue voters or subscribe to non-centrist ideologies. The contested middle is mostly a myth. Of course there are genuinely apathetic people out there, but typically they are staying home on election day. If they do feel a civic duty to vote, they can vote third party. What shifts is the passion people have for one party or another. If you normally vote democrat but don't consider yourself a democrat, odds are you are dissatisfied in some way with the democratic platform or candidate; you're not going to vote for a republican instead, but maybe you're not going to stand in line at the polling booth for the democrat either. At least for the past several elections, victory has come with energizing the base. In 2016, for example, there wasn't some noticeable shift to the right, Clinton only got 62000 fewer votes than Obama won with in 2012, but Trump got 2 million more votes than Romney did in 2012, because people who stayed home in 2012 came out in support of him in 2016. Conversely in 2020, Trump received 11 million more votes than he did in 2016, but Biden received over 15 million more votes than Clinton. Between the changes in overall election turnout and variance in third party voting, there's been no net shifting of votes from one side to the other in between any presidential election this century. Now it's a little more complicated than just getting people to come out, getting high turnout in the right areas is critical, so that fudges things a little bit. For example in 2016 Clinton had very comparable overall numbers to Obama in 2012, but she had dramatically less support in midwestern urban centers and stronger support in the south, which is pretty useless in the electoral college. But again, its not that people in the midwestern cities were voting for trump, they were staying home while suburban midwestern blue collar workers who traditionally didn't vote turned out.