Hey, this is surprisingly good. What's going on over there at the Times?
The uncommitted 18 percent
By David Leonhardt
Sept 4, 2024
About 18 percent of American voters have not made up their minds between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, recent polls suggest.
Some members of this 18 percent say they lean toward one of the two candidates without having a firm preference. Others say they don’t lean toward either. Yet history suggests that many of these Americans will vote — and will ultimately support the Democratic or Republican nominee. Once they do, they will probably decide the presidential election.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll offer a portrait of the country’s uncommitted voters.
Young moderates of color
A major problem for President Biden’s re-election campaign was his weakness among young voters and voters of colors. A Democratic candidate typically needs to win these groups in a landslide, and Biden wasn’t on pace to do so. Harris is faring much better, which is why the race seems virtually tied. (Nate Silver’s forecast model calls Trump a slight favorite because Trump is stronger in swing states than he is nationwide, while The Economist’s model considers Harris’s national lead large enough to make her a slight favorite.)
Still, even with Harris’s progress among younger voters and those who are Asian, Black, Hispanic or Native American, many remain undecided. As a group, the uncommitted 18 percent of the electorate is less white and younger than decided voters, New York Times/Siena College polling shows:
If you assume that most swing voters are disaffected liberals because of their youth and diversity, however, you will be wrong. For one thing, uncommitted voters are slightly more likely to be male than decided voters are. Most also do not have a four-year college degree, and working-class voters tend to be more socially conservative.
Overall, swing voters are more likely to identify as conservative than liberal, a potential advantage for Trump. Most swing voters, not surprisingly, consider themselves moderates, separate polling by YouGov has found.
The top issues
As for the issues that matter most to swing voters, pocketbook economics is No. 1 by far. Loyal supporters of Harris or Trump, by comparison, name issues like abortion, climate change, civil rights or immigration more often than undecided voters do:
By The New York Times | Source: Economist/YouGov nationwide polls, Aug. 2024
This year’s election is so close that those other issues might still sway enough voters to matter. That’s why the Harris campaign emphasizes both the Republican Party’s unpopular abortion position and the continued flip-flopping from Trump about his own views. It’s also why the Trump campaign blames Harris for the surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration. But neither abortion nor immigration matters to as many swing voters as economic issues do.
The knowledge gap
Poll results point to another key point about uncommitted voters: They are more eager to hear about Harris and her plans than about Trump and his.
Trump has spent nearly a decade as the Republican Party’s leader, and even longer as a celebrity. Most Americans feel they know who he is. Many adore him. Many others despise him. Those in the middle generally don’t like Trump but are open to voting for him.
Harris is not as well known. As a result, much of the campaign’s final two months will revolve around trying to define her, positively or negatively.
Two recent experiments by Democratic-leaning researchers, for example, found that Harris’s ads were better at swaying voters when they focused on her rather than Trump. “Voters still have a lot to learn about Vice President Harris and are looking for a hopeful vision of the future, not just more attacks on a well-known figure,” concluded Blueprint, a firm that surveyed thousands of voters’ views about six hypothetical ads for Harris. Likewise, two political scientists — David Broockman of the University of California, Berkeley, and Josh Kalla of Yale — found that the most effective messages for Harris portrayed her as a typical Democrat who would protect Social Security and Medicare, expand abortion access, reduce the cost of living and so on. “Attacking Trump simply isn’t as effective for Democrats as praising Harris,” Broockman and Kalla wrote.
Trump’s campaign has come to a similar conclusion, albeit from the opposite perspective. “This is a moment in the message arc of us seeking to define her,” one Trump adviser told The Washington Post. Trump is “a defined candidate,” the adviser said.
I know that some readers will be surprised to hear that 18 percent of voters still haven’t decided between Harris and Trump, given their stark differences. But remember that many Americans don’t follow politics as closely as you may. This year’s campaign has also been an unusual one, in which one party picked a nominee who didn’t spend many months running in primaries and talking with voters. Above all, swing voters seem to want to know more about that nominee.
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