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Can Harris win over undecided voters?

Can Harris win over undecided voters?

First debate with the Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump only marginally changed 2024 Despite the consensus that Harris is outperforming her Republican rival, election polls show.

Heading into the September 10 debate, Harris said Trump was ahead in the polls by just over a point. GerçekNetPolicies By the weekend, that average margin had widened to just under two points, but the vice president had failed to get his message across to the most coveted demographic in this and almost every election: undecided voters.

Anecdotal reports suggest that some undecided voters in contested states are showing more interest in Harris than they did before the debate, but the same number of media outlets have reported since Tuesday that Harris’s tendency to provoke Trump and does not significantly expand the policy agendaleaving behind undecided voters who wanted more.

But Patrick Murray, director of The Polling Institute and Monmouth University, Washington Auditor Based on how well-known both candidates are, they should spend more time focusing on their own base rather than the remaining undecided voters.

“The media talks about undecided voters, but take a cue from the campaigns. They’re not looking at undecided voters,” he said in an interview. “They’re looking at unmotivated voters, people who they think will vote for them for other reasons but don’t think there’s any point, that there’s no benefit for them to go and vote. voters “They’re looking to get the Harris side going, specifically, so I think that’s the group we’re looking at.”

Murray broadly categorized these unmotivated voters as “young voters” who “feel like they’re being left behind,” but said it’s nearly impossible to say which candidate will best reach this demographic without detailed information about each campaign’s actual resources.

Political analyst and former co-chair of Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, Bakari Sellers, said similarly: Washington Auditor Harris is more concerned about turnout, though not as much as Trump, but Vice President‘s campaign has made progress in addressing this weakness.

“Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and the couch. The question of how many voters will stay home,” he explained. “I tell people that the ‘poll train’ is not an experiment in real life. I understand what people think the polls are going to be today, and the polls are just snapshots in time, but when you go out and meet people, it’s something tangible Piglet Curly“You meet them at Bi-Lo, you see them at the post office. People talk. The energy is different.”

A Democratic strategist with close ties to Harris’ campaign said: Washington Auditor He said he could definitely increase turnout in November.

“Look at all the ‘double haters’ who weren’t going to sit out the Biden-Trump election. They’re all supporting Harris now,” that person declared. “I expect the vice president to continue to expand his ranks over the next two months.”

The Harris campaign has repeatedly emphasized to reporters that the vice president is not taking any voters for granted, thanks to her overwhelming support. fundraising By the numbers, they implemented a major state electoral game to mobilize new supporters and invigorate Democrats who still have doubts about Harris.

The Trump campaign did not respond to questions for this story.

Yet despite Trump’s lackluster showing last Tuesday, polls suggest he is not out of the race and his team remains optimistic he will win in November.

Trump pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis originally claimed that Trump and Harris were equally involved in the debate, but the former minister He held a two-point national advantage over the vice president on Tuesday.

“Despite Kamala Harris and (the media’s) best efforts to portray the debate as a landslide victory for him, we found that voters did not see it that way because support for him remained steady,” they wrote in a memo released Thursday. “The only change we saw was a 2-point increase for President Trump in both ballot formats.”

“Despite Kamala Harris and (the media’s) best efforts to portray the debate as a landslide victory for her, we found that voters did not see it that way because support for her remained static,” they wrote in a memo circulated Wednesday. “Clearly, target state voters were not impressed by Kamala Harris’s empty platitudes, and while the media would have people believe she was on track for victory, that is far from the truth.”

Two seniors Republican Strategists with ties to the Trump campaign also said: Washington Auditor Unlike Harris, I don’t think turnout will be a problem for Trump.

“Let’s be honest. Republican voters have been more reliable than Democrats for at least the last decade,” one strategist argued. “They’re going to show up, which will allow President Trump to focus his efforts on courting demographic groups that are not traditionally Republican, including black and Hispanic voters.”

Moreover, Embers If he follows through on his promise not to debate Harris again, the former president will not only deny Harris the opportunity to make her case again at the national level, but will also shatter her mediocre performance in the minds of his base.

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“From what we saw in the last debate and what Trump has seen over the years, it’s unlikely that he’s going to improve his performance, which means he’s better off staying where he is right now,” Murray explained. “The hope is that the opposition that was drawn in that debate about him being on the extreme side of things, about eating pets and all sorts of things, will fade away, just as everything else about him has faded away in the past.”

Both candidates will campaign in key swing states, with Trump expected to hold rallies in both Michigan And North CarolinaHarris will spend his time here Pennsylvania.