- [Narrator] In this year's election,
a majority of voters already have a pretty good idea
of which candidate they'll choose in November.
But 32% of the voting pool is still persuadable.
A combination of people who are undecided,
say they're voting for a third party,
or aren't fully committed to a candidate.
Together, this group could be the deciding factor
in a tight election, swayed by either Trump or Biden.
And this year,
they could offer some additional challenges
for the president.
- Traditionally, a Democrat has to be up
by four or five points in national polling
to have the strength to win in the electoral college.
- [Narrator] So who are these persuadables?
And what can they tell us about what candidates
need to do before November?
The persuadable group looks very different
from the wider voting pool,
based off a WSJ poll of voters in swing states.
For starters, they're less partisan
than the rest of the electorate.
They identify mostly as independent,
so neither Republican or Democrat.
And they're more likely to identify as moderate
in their ideology.
Those stances mean that the issues
they might be the most motivated by
differ from more partisan voters.
- Well, a lot of the issues that the candidates
are talking about don't resonate with them.
These voters are not very focused on immigration,
which is something you'll hear Donald Trump talk about
almost every day.
And abortion, these voters are interested in abortion,
but again, it doesn't pop as much
as a top issue for these voters.
These tend to be moderate, economy-focused voters.
The bread and butter economic issues
that people deal with in their daily lives.
- [Narrator] And they don't really feel good
about either candidate.
- It'll be a head-to-head comparison
with two presidents with track records.
There's nothing new or exciting about them
at this particular point.
- [Narrator] Richard Thau moderates focus groups with voters
to see how they're feeling about candidates
in this election.
- So their minds basically are,
"Ugh, why do I have to choose these guys?
Why can't I have somebody else?"
- [Narrator] While they tend to rank Biden higher
on issues like abortion and protecting democracy,
and Trump higher on economy and immigration,
they're far more likely than the rest of the electorate
to say that neither is best fit
for handling any of these issues.
- They cannot wait to get rid of both of them.
They want them done for the scene, they want them retired.
They want a new generation that is running the country.
And that's the thing that's different this time
than I saw the last time.
- [Narrator] These voters also skew less White,
and younger than the general electorate.
And that spells trouble for Biden.
Remember, these are the big groups of the electorate
that were crucial to Biden's win over Trump.
- They make up some of the main pillars
of the Democratic coalition,
and those pillars are showing cracks.
Voters in those groups are not coming out for Biden,
they're saying they're gonna support Biden
to the same degree as they have in past elections.
- [Narrator] For the most part,
their problems with Biden over the last four years
reflect the larger electorate's problems with Biden.
First, there's Biden's age and ability to lead.
Across the polling pool,
voters ranked Biden lower than Trump
on his fitness for president.
And young voters especially,
think he's not in shape to take office again.
Then there's what he's actually been able
to accomplish in office,
especially when it comes to the economy.
- Although the macro numbers look great,
a lot of the people I interview aren't feeling
the quality of the economy
that the macro numbers are showing.
- [Narrator] In one of Thau's focus groups,
this criticism was big with Black voters,
who also make up the second biggest slice
of persuadable voters by race this year.
- If it was a significant change in those areas,
then it would be obvious, we could all see it.
And we could feel it in our day-to-day lives.
- [Narrator] But Trump has work to do with persuadables too.
Thau says that Trump's conduct is one major reason
voters are leaning away from him.
- They don't particularly like him as a person
or think he's a particularly good role model.
There are some of them who are concerned
about his threat to democracy, what they saw on January 6th.
And they don't wanna replicate that again.
- [Narrator] Both of these candidates
will not only have to sway these voters to their side,
but also motivate them to come out to the polls.
Persuadables are less likely to even commit
to voting in November.
- In the 2020 election,
although Biden won the popular vote by seven million,
he won the electoral college
by fewer than 44,000 votes
in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia combined.
It's a minuscule number.
That's why we're so focused on these groups,
because if they had just gone the other way,
Trump would be president today.
(bright music)