Actor Matthew McConaughey urges voters to consider independent candidates
by Mary McCue Bell · The Washington TimesActor Matthew McConaughey offered voters a midterm pitch: give independent candidates a chance.
In a six-minute video posted Sunday, the Academy Award-winning actor urged voters to take independent candidates seriously in the November midterms, arguing they could push Republicans and Democrats “back to the middle, where most American values live.”
“Independents belong in the fight, not as a protest, not as a spoiler, but as a real and potential winner, on the ballot and considered seriously by us,” Mr. McConaughey says in the clip.
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A Gallup poll found a record-high 45% of U.S. adults identified as political independents in 2025. And Mr. McConaughey dismissed the sentiment that voting for an independent is the equivalent of throwing away your vote.
“So they’ve been telling us for years that an independent vote is a wasted vote. Well, a great question for our times is how’s that unwasted vote been working out for you?” he asked his online followers.
Mr. McConaughey, who flirted with running for governor of Texas in 2021, clarified that being independent “does not mean you’re middle of the road. Road.”
“Independent is the original road. Before there was ever a Republican or a Democrat, there was an American,” he said.
“And a true independent is not a fence sitter, Mr. Mrs. In between, I don’t know how I feel,” he added. “No, a true independent is not even against the R’s or the D’s. A true independent takes the best of both. And that’s not indecision, it’s judgment.”
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Independents are not a minority, he said, but are the “majority maker.”
“Nothing passes without them. Every bill has to come through the middle, which means both parties would finally have to compete for the middle,” the actor said.
Three independents currently are members of Congress — two in the Senate and one in the House.
Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernard Sanders of Vermont caucus with Democrats, and Rep. Kevin Kiley of California and caucuses with Republicans.
Most independents lean toward a party. Of the 45%, 20% lean Democratic, 15% lean Republican and 10% do not sway either way, according to Gallup.
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“Independents don’t just have leverage, they actually are the leverage,” Mr. McConaughey said.
The 2014 best actor Oscar winner for “Dallas Buyers Club” cited former Sen. Joe Manchin III’s organization, the Independent Leadership Council, which the West Virginia independent founded to recruit, organize and financially back independent congressional candidates.
Mr. McConaughey said Mr. Manchin “knows the math.”
“He lived it in a 50-50 Senate. One independent mind became the deciding vote and took all the fire for it alone,” he said. “Now imagine that same power held by three or four together, owned by no party at all.”
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If the goal is to change how both parties behave and bring them back to the middle, he said, then “electing independents is a mechanism to make that happen.”
He dubbed independent candidates the “permanent check” to keep both parties honest.
“You do have more than two choices. And I’m not telling you who to vote for. I’m telling you to look at your ballot, study up, see if they represent you, what you believe in. Check if they can be that voice of reason in the middle for you. And if they can, treat them like a potential winner because they can be,” Mr. McConaughey said. “That’s what fairness looks like. That’s what reality allows for. The first time in a long, long time.”
“America’s brand was never R or D. It’s independence. Enjoy yours,” Mr. McConaughey said.
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Mary McCue Bell
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