Removing a few lines in a table

Question

I have this code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
    \begin{tabular}{c|lccc|c|}
    & \multicolumn{5}{c}{\textbf{Political Party Preference}}\\\toprule
    & & \textbf{Democrat} & \textbf{Republican} & \textbf{Independent} & \textbf{Total}\\\midrule
    \textbf{Gender} & \textbf{Male} & 11 & 7 & 2 & 20\\
    & \textbf{Female} & 7 & 8 & 1 & 16\\\midrule
    & \textbf{Total}  & 18 & 15 & 3 &  36\\\bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
    \end{center}

\end{document}

which gives

But I'd like to produce the table shown at:

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I would suggest you not to use vertical rules at all (the booktabs package documentation has some arguments in favor of this recommendation); if you add vertical rules, they won't interact well with the booktabs package (as you've noticed) and trying to make the rules work will spoil the table layout:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{@{}c>{\bfseries}lcccc@{}}
\toprule
 & \multicolumn{5}{c}{\textbf{Political Party Preference}} \\
& & \textbf{Democrat} & \textbf{Republican} & \textbf{Independent} &   
  \textbf{Total} \\
\cmidrule(r){1-2}\cmidrule(lr){3-3}\cmidrule(lr){4-4}\cmidrule(lr){5-5}\cmidrule(l){6-6}
\textbf{Gender} & Male & 11 & 7 & 2 & 20 \\
& Female & 7 & 8 & 1 & 16\\
\midrule
& Total  & 18 & 15 & 3 &  36\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{center}

\end{document}

Or even like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{@{}>{\bfseries}lcccc@{}}
\toprule
Gender & \multicolumn{4}{c}{\textbf{Political Party Preference}} \\
\cmidrule(l){2-5}
& \textbf{Democrat} & \textbf{Republican} & \textbf{Independent} &   
  \textbf{Total} \\
\cmidrule(r){1-1}\cmidrule(lr){2-2}\cmidrule(lr){3-3}\cmidrule(lr){4-4}\cmidrule(l){5-5}
Male & 11 & 7 & 2 & 20 \\
Female & 7 & 8 & 1 & 16\\
\midrule
Total  & 18 & 15 & 3 &  36\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{center}

\end{document}

Answer 2

@user16203 You might try this code:

 \documentclass{article}
 \usepackage{tabls,pxfonts}

 \begin{document}

 \begin{center}
 \begin{tabular}{c|lccc|c|}
 \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{5}{c}{\textbf{Political Party Preference}} \\\cline{2-6}
                 & & \textsf{Democrat}  & \textsf{Republican} 
                 & \textsf{Independent} & \textsf{Total} \\ \cline{2-6}
 \multicolumn{1}{c|}{\textbf{Gender}}& \textbf{Male}   & 11 & 7  & 2 & 20 \\
            & \textbf{Female} & 7  & 8  & 1 & 16\\ \cline{2-6}
            & \textbf{Total}  & 18 & 15 & 3 & 36\\ \cline{2-6}
 \end{tabular}
 \end{center}

 \end{document}