Even as Harris has shaken up race, some voters still want other options
WASHINGTON ― Robert Bippert doesn’t care for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
The Republican from Selah, Wash., plans to vote for Trump. But he’s not excited about it.
“I wish we had better candidates,” said Bippert, 74, a retired state employee. “But I know this is what we’ve got.”
With just two months until Election Day, a small but significant number of voters share his disdain for both candidates, according to a new Paste BN/Suffolk poll.
Roughly 7.5% of those polled said they are undecided or selected third-party candidates as both a first and second choice for president heading into the final stretch of the campaign. In a close race, that could be enough to change the outcome of the election.
The good news for Harris: She appears to stand a better chance than Trump of winning them over.
When asked what is holding them back from supporting the Democratic nominee, 29% said they are still undecided or they need more information. Twenty-one percent said they disagree with her views, while 11% cited the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The top reason voters gave for withholding their support for Trump (33%) was his lack of character or that they disliked him. Thirteen percent said they disagreed with the Republican nominee’s views, while just 12% said they were undecided or needed more information. Nine percent said he talks too much.
The responses suggest Harris is still fairly unknown to some voters while opinions about Trump, a former president, are more concrete.
That means Harris has an opening to win over those skeptical voters in the final weeks of the campaign, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
“Trump in essence has the ceiling on these voters,” Paleologos said. “So if you’re Harris, you already know there’s a good chance that people don’t like Trump of that people don’t like what he says or his political views, there’s a real opportunity there.”
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To take advantage of that opportunity, the Harris campaign may want to target those voters who say they don’t have enough information about her, Paleologos said.
Trump, on the other hand, may be OK with those voters who dislike him sitting on the sidelines. If they choose not to vote instead of voting for Harris, that benefits Trump because “He wasn’t going to get those voters anyway,” Paleologos said.
Harris campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon acknowledged in a memo released Sunday the vice president has room to expand her support and that some voters still feel like they don’t know her or her running mate Tim Walz well. The campaign is planning an aggressive schedule to introduce Harris and Walz to those voters and help define the ticket for them, O'Malley Dillon said.
To that end, the campaign has opened more than 312 offices and hired more than 2,000 staffers in battleground states. Harris is looking to cut Trump’s margins in rural and red counties in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin, while ramping up efforts to reach Black and Latino voters. The campaign spent $150 million on a media blitz in August to help introduce Harris to voters and plans to spend another $370 million through Election Day to reach voters who will decide the election.
Asked what Trump is doing to reach voters who are on the fence about the former president, Trump campaign spokesman Steve Cheung argued that Trump is dominating nationally and in battleground states “because voters want a return to pro-America policies that actually work, not the weak, failed, and dangerously liberal policies of Comrade Kamala.”
Polls show a close race in most battleground states, with some giving Harris a slight lead.
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Brian Giles of Atlanta isn’t crazy about either candidate, but he’s leaning toward Trump.
“My problem with Kamala is the way she’s handling herself right now,” Giles said. “She keeps saying she’s going to fix things, but she has been there for years,” he said.
Giles said he doesn’t believe either party has done a good job, especially on issues like gun-ownership rights and abortion. Both parties use those issues to raise money instead of working to find a solution, he said.
Eric Ansara of Canton, Mich., voted for Trump four years ago but hasn’t backed a candidate this year.
“I truly have no idea who I’m voting for,” the 57-year-old plant manager said.
Ansara said he is uncommitted because he wants to see which party and candidate will help Palestinian families devastated by the war in Gaza.
“I have heard nothing from Donald Trump, other than I saw the Jewish flag behind him,” he said. “That’s telling me he’s supporting Israel.”
Ansara said he feels like President Joe Biden is trying to help, but he hasn’t heard much from Harris on the issue. “Someone needs to have a voice for innocent families dying in Palestine,” he said.
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One encouraging sign for Harris: The number of voters on the fence about both candidates appears to be shrinking.
A Paste BN/Suffolk poll in March, before Biden dropped out of the race and Harris stepped in, showed that 15% of voters disliked both candidates. Harris’ candidacy has changed the dynamics of the race, with just 7.5% now undecided or choosing a third-party candidate.
Other polls have also shown that the number of voters who held unfavorable views of both candidates has fallen with Harris in the race.
Harris and Trump are scheduled to meet in their first debate in Philadelphia next Tuesday.