Or what the two major 2024 presidential candidates need to know about an (undecided) independent voter.
Earlier this year, we asked voters in Michigan and Georgia how they felt about the upcoming presidential elections. We found – very much as we expected – that it is the economy topping the list of issues to which the likely voters are paying attention.
What also came across loud and clear is that likely voters who are still yet to decide on whom they will support have a very different perspective on where the economy is and where it is heading. Unlike Biden voters (“we struggled through some tough COVID years and now look how great our trajectory looks”) and Trump voters (“it is all terrible now, let’s get back to how things were under Trump”), undecided and independent voters do understand both of these stories. They recognize that things are improving, but they also are not convinced that we are out of the woods yet. Independent voters are still to be convinced. They are paying attention to the two stories the candidates tell, but they have not yet made up their mind.
Independent voters are about evenly split between Biden and Trump or voting for someone else completely.
That’s why we have aimed our 3rd pulse check at independent voters, the voters who today are equally as likely to vote for Trump, Biden, or someone else.
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Before we answer the question of whose story has resonated more with our sample of 100 independent likely voters, we should acknowledge that as things stand today, a good number of independents are likely to cast a vote to a 3rd party spoiler. The number of independents who will remain unconvinced by Trump or Biden is likely to change by the time the first ballots are cast, but it is quite possible that this particular pool of voters could very well decide the next presidential elections. Today, those voters gravitate toward Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 
Almost half of “neither Biden nor Trump” voters like RFK Jr. as their choice (43% in our sample). It is also interesting to note that if we extend this question (“If neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden were on the ticket, who would be your preferred candidate for the President of the United States in the 2024 presidential election?”), it is the Trump voters who would pick RFK Jr. more readily from the ticket. 41% of currently Trump-leaning independents would choose RFK Jr. vs 19% of Biden-leaning voters. Are current Trump independent votes more at risk than Biden’s? It appears so today, and this is something we will be watching for in our future pulse checks.
Independents overwhelmingly care about the economy. However, on other issues, undecided independents look more like Biden voters.
It is hard to predict where will the currently undecided independent voter line up six long months from now. Clearly, the candidate with the more believable vision and story on the economy will have the best chance to convince. However, should neither candidate have a clear edge on that issue, undecided independents align more with the Biden voter on social issues.
Women’s rights and abortion laws appear as the most differentiating issues where currently undecided independent voters clearly align with Biden’s story.
To further illustrate how powerful the economic issues are for the independent voters, take a look at the results of the MaxDiff exercise. In this exercise, we presented a political issues in randomly selected groups of three. Our respondents then picked which of the random three is most important to them and which one is the least important. The exercise was repeated until all issues were shown.
The most important issues turned out to be on the topic of the economy. In fact, 8 of top 10 issues are all related to the economy, with only two social issues (strengthening environmental policies_ and restoring Roe vs Wade) making it into the top of the list. Many of the other social issues that typically resonate with the conservative voter have ranked near the bottom of the list. This election truly does appear to be about the economy first, second and third.
The problem for both candidates, however, is that undecided voters think that neither candidate is the right person for the job of addressing these issues. In our small sample of 35 undecided independent voters, “neither candidate” was the most popular choice on every policy item in the survey. While Trump has the edge on the important issues of unemployment and inflation, Biden is more trusted on the policies affecting middle class economic prosperity and most of the social issues. Interestingly, these voters feel that either candidate would do well on the issue of equality or equity issues. Perhaps this indifference between the two candidates shows exactly that – indifference to the issue.
Biden has work to do on making his story of the economy more compelling.
As the final exercise in our pulse check survey, we presented respondents with two crowdsourced stories that voters want their preferred candidates to tell before the elections. You find their full text in our earlier blog. Consistent with other data in our survey, Donald Trump’s story continues to play a more resonant message with the independent voters.
44% of our independent voter panel (N=100) preferred Donald Trump’s story while 36% preferred Joe Biden’s (outer ring of our chart). Only about 20% didn’t find either story compelling. This picture, however, changes significantly when looking at undecided independents (outer ring): while among undecided’s Trump’s story loses a small amount of support, support for Biden’s story drops significantly.
Advantage Trump? Not quite yet.
Where does this pulse check leave us? Looking at the most recent polling, the gap between Biden and Trump support among likely voters is small and current trends indicate that it is further shrinking. This only continues to point to the importance of independent voters in November.
While as of now, independent voters are about evenly divided in their expected support in November, Trump’s story on the economy is holding small, but decided advantage particularly among undecided voters (40% like Trump’s story, 23% like Biden’s). Some of that advantage is, however, mitigated by a stronger alignment of undecided voters with Biden on most social issues.
Given the small victory margin in the 2020 presidential elections, the upcoming elections may again come down to small advantages and disadvantages the two candidates can leverage. For my money, much of the deciding margin will come from the votes that independent voters will cast. Specifically, it will come to the votes of currently undecided independents voters. We will continue to monitor and document their journey and the stories that resonate with this potentially deciding slice of our electorate.
