Just Who Are These Undecided Voters?

It would be hard to have more political uncertainty than we do right now, with seven swing states effectively dead even in polling. Given how narrowly and bitterly divided our country currently is, however, we shouldn’t be too surprised. Anyone reasonably sure they know the outcome has a lot more confidence in polling than I—or most pollsters I know—do.

There has long been a natural tendency for partisans, of either the red or blue hue, to cherry-pick polls. They ignore or discount surveys that indicate a potentially unfavorable outcome while placing great reliance on those suggesting a more desired outcome. Of late, it seems that many Democrats have developed a bad habit of dismissing polls showing them even or behind but stand 100 percent behind the findings of those with any kind of margin in their favor, no matter how statistically insignificant that edge may be. Both sides these days should feel like the proverbial Southern long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

One question I’m often asked is, “Who could possibly be undecided? Who could be torn between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris?” My response has typically been, first, that there are fewer real undecided voters than many believe, and second, those undecideds are generally what pollsters call“ pure independents,” with no instinctive lean toward either party. These are people who feel terribly cross-pressured at the moment. They don’t particularly like Trump or his style and would rather nothave him as their president for the next four years, but they aren’t happy with the policies, priorities, and performance of the Biden-Harris administration. Sure, Harris is younger than President Biden, but they have little idea how or where she would pursue a different course of action than he has.

Vice presidents and their supporters want to embrace any successes that their administration had while distancing themselves from failures. The reality is that vice presidents rarely have much influence within most administrations (Dick Cheney being an obvious exception), so they don’t deserve the credit when things go well or the blame when things go badly. But making that distinction from Biden is exceedingly difficult if not dangerous on many levels.

In The Atlantic , National Journal alum Ronald Brownstein suggested it’s really not about undecided voters being torn between Trump and Harris. It’s more that they have mixed feelings about voting or not voting. If they vote, they may have a preference, but obviously not a deep one.

Brownstein offers a different way of looking at these people and the challenge that campaigns have in attempting to motivate those who are torn between voting for that campaign’s candidate or not voting at all. On the Trump side, it isn’t as complicated, Brownstein argues, because both Trump’s ride-or-die base as well as his softer supporters are largely motivated by the same arguments and issues.

But for the Harris side, the arguments that might land with those who can’t decide between backing her or not voting at all may not be the same ones that land with the party base. Suggesting a different path than Biden risks alienating party constituencies who have yet to make waves since Harris became the nominee.

Immigration is a good example: The administration’s more-aggressive posture on the border this year risks running afoul of the staunch pro-immigration wing of the Democratic Party that sees border enforcement as a manifestation of racism. Conversely, if Harris comes out for a more-permissive immigration policy, she would risk the votes of fence-sitting moderates who may fear immigration’s economic and cultural impact.

My view has been that by the standards of the Democratic Party of California, Harris had been relatively moderate, but she swerved to the left when she unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 2019. Of course, Harris was hardly alone in moving to the left, but having to pivot from those positions to be a competitive general-election candidate should be a lesson for Democrats.

It is ill-advised for presidential candidates to answer questions too freely and candidly, but if I could wire Harris up to a polygraph machine and give her a dose of sodium pentothal, the questions I would want to ask would include: Why did Biden’s Gallup job-approval numbers drop 14 points between June and October of 2021? Which policies may have triggered such a backlash? Did your administration assume or pretend to have a mandate that the election results did not warrant?

With the massive amounts of research that the Harris campaign is conducting, no doubt they have theories on how to thread this needle. Fortunately for them, they have a candidate who exhibits farmore skill and savviness than she did in 2019. The first thing this situation requires is discipline, which is something she possesses far more of than Trump.