Who are undecided voters, anyway?

The 2024 presidential election might be decided by the undecided. In an era of hyperpolarization, the idea that there are still "undecided voters" might seem unbelievable. But they exist — and they could choose who wins in November.

"There are different strains of 'undecided,'" Philip Bump said at The Washington Post. Many of those Americans aren't so much divided between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris — instead, they're "undecided" on whether or not to vote. Others have "complex" calculations to make about how the candidates align with their own values. And others simply aren't paying much attention. There have always been Americans who are "loosely attached" to politics, Bump said. "This isn't new."

Campaigns sort undecideds into two groups: "Persuadable" and "irregular." "Persuadable voters get the most attention from the media," Ronald Brownstein said at The Atlantic. But the irregulars — folks who don't always go to the polls — "can loom much larger in the outcome." Why? Because they're much more likely to turn out in a presidential election. "There are more humans who are non-habitual voters than there are voters who swing back and forth," said one Democratic strategist.

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Views 'all over the place'

Undecideds are often seen as voters who sit "squarely in the middle of today's polarized politics," Jay Kaspian Kang said at The New Yorker. In reality, their views are "all over the place." The press has hyperfixated on these people, though, because presidential elections now come down to a "small number of voters in swing states." Despite the relentless effort to understand undecideds and what makes them tick, it seems we're no closer to answer. "We know the undecided voter will decide our destiny," Kang said, "but we cannot conjure up their face."

But they will matter. Harris' polling lead is "within the margin of error," said PBS NewsHour. "The band of undecided voters is getting narrower and narrower by the day," said a Republican strategist. Eight in 10 voters say their minds are "completely decided." But a few still want to learn more about Harris, who entered the race at a relatively late stage. "The fact that they're unsure is a better place to be than they're against you," said Faiz Shakir, a Democratic operative.

Shifting with the 'political winds'

"The firm line we've drawn between the 'decided' and the 'undecided' may not exist," Vinay Mehra said at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Most voters are "swaying" in response to the national mood, recent events and other factors. Undecideds are "simply those most visibly affected by this swing." They don't sit in the middle of the political spectrum — instead, they're most likely to move from one side to the other "when the political winds shift." That means the way undecided voters move is "just a reflection of the swings happening across the electorate."

Or perhaps the winds simply blow ill. The existence of undecided voters might be a sign that the existing candidates and parties "don't merit public confidence," Ross Douthat said at The New York Times. If voters are given two bad options, he said, "they will often choose the one you are sure is worse."