The total mystery of America's undecided voters

The New York Times is exploring their views, but I have my own theory

After watching much of this week’s Democratic National Convention, it’s even harder for me to understand how American voters can put themselves in the “undecided” category for November’s election.

The choice is stark.

While there were many notable speeches over the past week, one of the most memorable moments came on Wednesday night when a video about the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol played at the convention and in America’s living rooms. Once again, the horror of that day had the power to shock. And apparently, we still need reminding. What followed was a brief speech by Capitol police officer Aquilino Gonell who recounted being injured by the marauders beating him with a pole attached to an American flag.

“President Trump summoned our attackers and incited them. He betrayed us,” Gonell said.

Thursday morning, I read this in the New York Times, as part of its exploration of young undecided voters, as they consider Trump’s bid: “Many of them were appalled by his behavior on Jan. 6, 2021.”

And yet, they can’t really make up their minds because, when it comes to Kamala Harris, “they say she is too far left and that she covered up President Biden’s aging issues — and want to know what she would do about inflation, public safety and the Israel-Gaza war.”

Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz offered a “clip and save” in his Wednesday night speech that he suggested Harris’s followers should circulate widely. Everyone, he said, deserves to understand what a Harris-Walz administration has to offer. “Send it to your undecided friends, so they know,” said Walz, with a hint of disbelief that such people could still exist.

Thursday’s cover of the Minnesota Star Tribune / Posted on X by Michael Li

Unlike the Times’s undecided voters, some people have made up their minds and really don’t care about the issues mentioned above.

These include a prominent conservative judge, Michael Luttig, who has endorsed Harris — the first time he’ll pull the lever for a Democrat — and who explained in a written statement why he’s making this surprising move.

“In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her policy views are vastly different from my own but I am indifferent in this election on any issues other than than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.”

I think Judge Luttig has it exactly right. Trump is an existential danger to American democracy as Jan. 6th proved beyond a doubt. (I wrote more about the Bush-appointed judge’s decision in my Guardian column this week.)

My own theory on the undecideds is that many of them are what’s euphemistically called “low information voters.” By their own admission, many Americans don’t pay a lot of attention to the news; they’ve chosen to tune out.

Jan. 6th broke through to them, for obvious reasons. It was that big a deal. But many other subjects, far less so.

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One of the reasons for the tune-out is the precipitous decline of local news, particularly local newspapers. At one time, people in most parts of the United States shared a common basis of reality because pretty much everyone got the local paper — the Denver Post, the Youngstown Vindicator, the Buffalo News. I’ve written a lot about the news deserts that have sprung up around the country as those papers have withered or even folded. (More than two newspapers a week are going out of business in the U.S., according to research from Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.)

With all of this in mind, I’ll end on a positive note, in keeping with the optimism of this week. That has to do with the new direction of one of the nation’s most innovative regional newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Locally owned (a huge plus), and digitally savvy, the paper is now known as the Minnesota Star Tribune. It is adding reporters as it broadens its coverage to include the entire state.

“Our goal in this re-imagination of a treasured Minnesota institution is to represent the heart and the voice of the north, which is what we think our state is to America,” its publisher and CEO Steve Grove wrote. Here’s hoping this is a great success — one that can be emulated elsewhere, and one that might even help undecided voters in their quest to figure things out.

Thank you to all the subscribers here. I read your comments on my last post with a lot of interest, and appreciate the fact that you’ve along for this wild ride to November and beyond. Remember what media coverage should emphasize, as Jay Rosen puts it: Not the odds, but the stakes.

Please let me know in the comments if you watched the convention this week, and whose speech you found most significant.

For me, in addition to Office Gonell’s words, I was moved by Hillary Clinton’s passing the torch to Kamala Harris, and enjoyed Joe Hagan’s followup interview with her in Vanity Fair. She explained the catharsis that came with writing and delivering these words about the ultimate glass ceiling — one that remains intact, though it now features plenty of cracks.

Again, gratitude to you all. I appreciate how much you care about journalism and democracy at this critical moment.