Jacqueline S. Salit
A highly respected political innovator and advocate for the rights of independent voters—now 40% of the American electorate—Jacqueline Salit has built the largest network of independent leaders and activists in the country. She is the President of IndependentVoting.org, the country’s leading strategy and organizing center for independents, with chapters in 40 states. Since 2005 she has hosted a bi-annual national conference for independents.
Salit managed Michael Bloomberg’s three campaigns for New York City Mayor on the Independence Party (IP) line, playing a crucial role in delivering the IP’s “margin of victory” vote in 2001, the exodus of 47% of African-American voters from the Democratic Party to support Bloomberg in 2005, and the historic 150,000 votes for Bloomberg’s re-election on the IP line in 2009.
In 2011, Palgrave Macmillan selected Salit to write a book on the contemporary independent political movement in America. Independents Rising: Outsider Movements, Third Parties and the Struggle for a Post-Partisan America was released on August 7, 2012 and presents her firsthand account of this growing and influential voting bloc.
Salit recounts independents little-known history and sometimes volatile impact as old political institutions and categories are becoming irrelevant—even repugnant—to many Americans. Salit, who has spent 30 years as an insider in this growing movement of outsiders, also reveals how independents underestimate their own power and how they can make the most of their newfound influence in American politics.
Salit’s political commentaries have appeared in: USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Legal Times, Buffalo News, Union Leader, Albany Times Union, and New York Newsday. She’s been featured commentator on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CBC, PBS, FOX and CSPAN.
Salit is a regular contributor to the nationally syndicated radio program Fairness Radio and produced Talk/Talk with the late public philosopher Fred Newman. She is a native New Yorker who resides in Greenwich Village.
