The undecided voter

Lost in the Middle: America's Political Orphans

When you keep looking at polls that say Trump is up one here, Harris up 2 there—you need to keep one fact in mind. It’s not uncommon for pollsters to push undecided voters and leaners to pick a candidate. To say, “if you were going to vote today who would you choose?” It distorts the true state of the race.

If you live in a swing state like I do in Wisconsin we have been carpet bombed for months. Mailboxes jammed full of campaign postcards, the incessant tv and radio commercials have pushed the car dealers and home remodeling crowd off the air.

So, OMG who is still waffling at this moment?

Many are what the Cook Reports Amy Walter likened to casual NFL fans like herself. They don’t pay attention to the draft, free agent signings, or the exhibition season. The closer we get to the Super Bowl they become engaged. With a handful of days to go until election day now they are stocking up on chips and coke to watch NBC’s Steve Kornack after voting in person.

I also think a pile of them are voters who like much of what Trump did in the White House, but cannot get over January 6th, or his personality and boorish behavior.

Read this passage from This morning by Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen

A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted Sept. 30 to Oct. 15 showed 26 percent of swing-state voters were still uncommitted — and they were much more negative about the Biden-Harris administration than the wider electorate…Other polls have found similar results. Recent New York Times-Siena polls found that 18 percent of voters in key swing states were not firmly committed to either candidate.”

Will they vote for the ex-President, or if they are still double haters, will they even vote? In that same WaPo poll only 52 percent of uncommitted voters said they definitely will vote. And just 42 percent believed their vote matters

At the Lost Middle podcast, we have been doing a series of countdown episodes and today we turn to Colorado to get a perspective.

There are a zillion political scientists at colleges around the country, most are dry and mind numbing, Seth Masket is one of a handful who is both entertaining and insightful. He’s a perfect guest for our Lost Middle Countdown series because he manages to cut through the clutter and spin. He is the Director of the Center on American Politics and his column at Substack is a must read. We look at tiny shifts in voting blocs that could tilt the election. We are looking at you political orphans, swing voters and independents.

You can find the whole episode right here at scottklug.substack.com

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