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John Holland, 74, prides himself on calling himself an independent politician, and has always strived to vote for the candidate he prefers, not a party to which he had pledged allegiance. In mid-October, he said in a New York Times / Siena College poll that he had not yet been convinced by President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Ultimately, Mr. Holland, a retired education technology professional in Minnesota, did elect and, like many late-deciding voters, said his choice came “from a values standpoint.”
“I said, ‘Would I like President Trump to be the grandfather of one of my grandchildren?’ And the answer was no, ”he said this week, explaining that he had donned a mask and walked to a polling place early to cast his vote for Biden.
Four years ago, voters like Holland, wary of the candidates of the two major parties, undecided until 11 o’clock, and guided by instinct rather than politics, decided the election. This year, polls show far fewer swing voters left, but in states with closed battlefields they could still be critical.
And while voters who were negative with the top two candidates in 2016 grew big for Trump as the “lesser of two evils,” particularly in the Midwest, they generally seem unwilling to do so again.
Among those most likely to be unconvinced by any of the leading candidates are Latinos, Asian Americans, youth, and those with a history of voting for a third-party candidate. None of those groups have shown much sympathy for Trump in the past four years, but each of them has also given Biden trouble, from the primary campaign to today.
Combining data from the Times / Siena polls on the battlefields and the nation dating back months, the undecided leaning towards Biden outnumbered those leaning towards Trump, though not by an overwhelming margin. Perhaps most significantly, Biden had a slight advantage among voters who had not expressed a favorable opinion of either candidate.
Most of those voters, a little more than half, had not settled on one to support, meaning there was room for movement.
The universe of these voters is small, but in states like Georgia or North Carolina, where the race could drop to one or two percentage points, “those volatile voters could make a difference,” said Patrick Murray, Monmouth’s director of polls. College.
In a Times / Siena poll of the country released last week, 9 percent of likely voters said they were still divided or planning to support a third-party candidate. Including voters who said they supported Biden or Trump, but only when pressed, that rose to 13 percent.
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Murray prefers the term “volatile voters” rather than undecided. In this group, include those who do not express voting preference, those who choose a third-party candidate, and those who lean toward Trump or Biden but may still change their mind.
When Trump took on Hillary Clinton four years ago, Murray said, about 20 percent of likely voters fell into the volatile category. This year, it’s been consistently closer to half that share and it’s dropping.
Those who stay also tend to be more confident now than four years ago that they disliked Trump: 54 percent of volatile voters in the most recent Times / Siena national poll expressed an unfavorable view of him, compared to just 28 percent favorable.
“Trump’s negatives are basically set in stone,” Murray said. “You would need something momentous to come out about Biden” for voters who have a negative opinion of Trump to vote for him.
Those without strong political opinions
Voters who remain ambivalent about their choices tend not to be particularly politically motivated and often do not have the kind of ideological convictions that would leave either candidate out of reach.
The Democratic nominee still has work to do to lure the undecided anti-Trump into his field; Biden was viewed unfavorably by 47 percent of volatile voters in that Times / Siena poll.
In 2016, the loss of Mrs. Clinton was due as much to the voters who stayed at home as to those who voted against her. This reduced the large number of votes Trump needed to achieve a highly contested state.
He won Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida without majority support in either of them, pushed across the finish line by last minute decider.
As Biden surpasses 50 percent support in various national and state polls, the chances of Trump winning similarly this year have decreased.
But Republicans are encouraged by its success in some key states in increasing registration among target voters, particularly whites without college degrees, fueling their hopes that an Election Day surge in a state like Pennsylvania could be enough to reverse Biden’s early voter advantage. That would be especially true if Republicans can keep enough negative voters for both out of the polls.
Steven Cameron and his wife, Amy, live on the outskirts of San Antonio in a state that could turn blue for the first time since 1976. Speaking on the phone this week, the couple said they were still not sure who to support, mainly because they weren’t they knew it. they feel they can trust Biden or Trump to tell the truth.
“I would rather have a person tell me they don’t know the answer than say something that isn’t true,” said Cameron, 58, who confessed that he and his wife were overwhelmed and discouraged by all the campaign news.
Who tends to be indecisive?
A core Democratic group that tends to be undecided more often is Latino voters, a demographic that Biden has struggled with all year. In all of the Times / Siena general election polls this year through mid-October, about a quarter of Hispanic respondents fell into the volatile voter category. This contributed in part to the weakness of Biden’s leadership among Latino voters compared to Clinton’s margins in 2016.
This year, Trump’s base of support has gotten slightly larger and much more trustworthy than four years ago, but so has his opposition. For four years, the president has been very obnoxious, and national polls tend to show that he cannot match the 46 percent support he garnered nationwide in 2016, which allowed him to achieve an Electoral College victory.
While voters know where he stands on Trump, opinions on Biden have been more elusive. His favorability ratings have risen sharply, especially among young voters and liberals, but he still shows vulnerability among some key demographic groups, particularly Latinos.
Volatile voters generally dislike either candidate, but are more likely to say they would rather see Biden handle the coronavirus pandemic than Trump, in line with trends across the electorate. And 56 percent of these voters expected the pandemic to get worse before it got better, while only 26 percent said they thought the worst was behind them, according to the latest Times / Siena poll. Sixty-three percent said they were concerned that they or a family member might contract the virus, a higher proportion than Trump supporters but less than Biden supporters.
While Biden’s supporters tended to say that their financial situation had worsened during the pandemic, Trump’s supporters actually said the opposite: 55 percent of them attested that their finances had improved in the past eight months. For those who do not support either candidate, half said the pandemic had not made a difference to their finances in any way, compared to just one in three among supporters of the leading candidates. Fewer than one in five ambivalent voters said it had made a big impact.
Some do not see that the virus and politics are related. “It’s a health problem and it’s something our country has to deal with, I agree with that, but I’d rather know what the candidates are going to do for our country,” said Cameron, a carpenter. “So I don’t think that should be an electoral issue.”
The Camerons agreed that they often think about things in apolitical terms and don’t lean heavily towards either side. But with Texas and its 38 electoral votes at stake this year, they fully intend to exercise their “freedom of choice” when Election Day rolls around, said Ms. Cameron, the office administrator.
“I feel like we have to elect someone to rule the country,” her husband added. “So we’re going to pick the one in our heart that we think would do the best job, even if we’re not 100 percent behind either.”
