173 independent House candidates test the size of America's political middle

Fundraising and debate access remain hurdles for independents

The 173 independent House candidates run against a backdrop where a record share of voters say they reject both major parties. According to NPR’s reporting, 45% of U.S. adults identify as political independents, yet only one independent, Kevin Kiley, serves in the House. Kiley, whose redrawn California district leans Democratic, switched from Republican to independent while in Congress and continues to caucus with Republicans, Politico reported.

NPR interviewed candidates in five states — Idaho, Florida, Colorado, Iowa and Alaska — and found that independents describe a common motivation: frustration with parties they say have moved to the extremes. Sarah Zabel, 61, an independent candidate for Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, said the view of independents as “a curiosity or a protest or a single issue” is outdated. “Independents used to be a curiosity or a protest or a single issue,” Zabel said. “Now, with the parties having gone to such extremes, independents are the necessary relief for the American voter.” Zabel, a retired Air Force major general, told NPR that she used to identify as a “heritage Republican” but stopped feeling aligned with the GOP after 2018, during the first Trump administration, when she no longer felt represented by the party or the “MAGA program.”

The Cook Political Report rates Idaho’s 1st District, which voted for Trump by a 45-point margin in 2024, as solid Republican for the incumbent, Rep. Russ Fulcher. Zabel, who noted she would not caucus with either party if in Congress, said the Democratic nominee’s presence in the race narrows her path to victory, but she still sees symbolic value in “showing Idaho and showing the country that we aren’t the MAGA stronghold.”

In Colorado’s 1st District, which covers solidly Democratic Denver, Shimon Blau, a lifelong independent and physician, told NPR he had not planned to run for Congress. That changed when Melat Kiros, 29, won the Democratic primary over 30-year incumbent Diana DeGette. Blau said he was “deeply disturbed” by Kiros’ victory and by what he described as her “past antisemitic rhetoric” and “socialist beliefs.” Kiros drew criticism in June for declining to describe a 2025 fatal firebombing attack on Jewish activists in Boulder, Colorado, as antisemitic. Blau received an endorsement from The Denver Gazette on Oct. 6, which described him as the “candidate of conscience.” He gathered the 1,500 signatures needed to qualify as an independent. “I think there’s a lot of disillusionment right now with both parties,” Blau told NPR. “It seems like both of our traditional parties are leaning more and more towards the extremes.”

In Florida, Seth Haskin, 26, who manages his family’s coffee business, is running in a southwest Florida district that Trump carried by at least 60% in the past two presidential elections. Local media mogul Jim Schwartzel won a tight and crowded Republican primary in August with almost 30% of the vote. A “strict constitutionalist” who previously ran for governor of Wisconsin as a write-in candidate, Haskin said he could have seen himself in either party before the COVID-19 pandemic, before he came to believe both parties had been “captured by the same industry leaders and PAC money and foreign lobbies and everything else.” Now he is running as an independent because, he said, he thinks voters are ready for a change. To attract attention on the trail, Haskin wears 18th-century attire — a puff-sleeved linen shirt under a waistcoat, breeches, long socks and buckle shoes — an outfit meant to remind people of the Founding Fathers and evoke their idea of limited government, which Haskin supports. He also carries an old-school bell. “Getting their [people’s] attention is the biggest battle that most candidates have,” Haskin told NPR. “But especially independent or no party candidates.” Even a double-digit share of the vote, he said, could reshape the landscape: “Even if I don’t win, if I can get double-digit percentage points as an independent candidate, I will get a lot of phone calls from both parties. It’s going to threaten the duopoly that they have, right?”

In Iowa’s 1st District, rated as lean Democratic by the Cook Political Report, businessman Michael Bridgford is running as an independent against Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Christina Bohannan, the Democratic nominee and former state representative. Bridgford told NPR that voters in the district are tired of the “dysfunction” from both parties and see independents as a source of “stable center.” He said the district’s swing status offers independents a natural advantage: “People are more independent minded. It’s not gerrymandered to one side. People are more middle of the road.”

In Alaska, even though voters have almost always picked the Republican presidential nominee, their long streak of independence has allowed independents and Democratic nominees to win statewide races. In the state’s at-large congressional race, rated as a likely Republican win, commercial fisherman Bill Hill is running as an independent against Republican incumbent Nick Begich, Democratic nominee Eric Hafner and Libertarian Jim McDermott. Hill, who registered as an independent at 18, told NPR that Alaskans “don’t toe a political line with every vote.” Hill, who was about 12 points behind Begich in the primary, also has an offer of support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Independent candidates across the country describe a common set of challenges: raising money against party-backed rivals and securing debate platforms alongside major-party opponents. Zabel said independents share a goal of demonstrating that the political middle is larger than the polarized surface of national politics suggests. “When you talk to enough people and they’re all moderate and everybody they know is moderate, but they believe everybody they don’t know must be right wing,” Zabel told NPR, “you see that it’s just an illusion. And we can bust that illusion.”