CHURCHVILLE, Pa. – Several undecided voters in the 2024 election were swayed by Tuesday’s debate – but it may take longer than the debate to fully make up their minds.
A handful of Arizona voters expressed interest in Vice President Kamala Harris on an NBC News panel following the ABC News debate. All three undecided voters gathered around Philadelphia for a similar exercise remained on the fence, with Harris watching from two and former President Donald Trump watching from one. While Harris had a good discussion overall, they wanted to hear more from him on some key issues.
According to public opinion polls, undecided voters make up just a few percentage points of the electorate, and a closely divided country is behind Trump and Harris. But in a close election, as in 2016 and 2020, a few percentage points can matter.
Three undecided Pennsylvania voters from Bucks County — one Democrat, one Republican and one independent — felt more confident about their frustrations with one candidate than their interest in the other and gave the debate a bleak assessment: “Manipulation.” “Lie.” “Alone.” “Same old, same old.”
Lynn Kelleher, a registered Republican who voted for Trump in 2016 and for the libertarian candidate in 2020, believes this election is about a choice: “Are you voting for your pocketbook or are you voting for your morals?”
“I think Kamala had a good debate,” he said. “I feel better about him than Donald, but I’m still not 100%.”
“I wish there were other candidates besides these two candidates. I disagree with both candidates. That’s why it’s very difficult for me,” he said.
Kelleher felt disappointed that Trump was talking “so extreme” and said that while Harris has “big labels” like the “opportunity economy,” he doesn’t understand what those statements mean.
Independent Hannah Reid, who backed Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, feels the same way. Reed said he wants to like Harris but doesn’t think he has “actual policies that will be effective.”
After hearing Trump talk about abortion on the debate stage, Reed said he might not vote for Trump, but he’s still not sure who he’s voting for.
“There is no woman carrying a nine-month-old child who goes into the office and asks the doctor to perform an abortion. There is no woman who does it, and there is no doctor who will do it. If that happens, it’s a medical emergency,” Reed said. “These are conversations that his supporters actually believe. That’s why he says it. And it’s not true. It’s misinformation. It’s disinformation.”
Reed believes that the majority of Americans are not satisfied with the choices in the elections.
Andrew Wallace, 41, a registered Democrat who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, said after the debate that he was leaning toward Trump — “51-49,” as he described it. He said he hopes to hear more about the candidates’ policies during the debate.
Wallace called the shift from Biden to Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket “a subversion of democracy” and said he “would like to have a say in the primary and they didn’t give me that.”
In Phoenix, Denise Lewis, 57, filed for both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, frustrated by the options presented. Entering the debate Tuesday night, the Scottsdale resident planned to write himself in again. After the debate, she is now considering voting for Harris.
One moment that stuck with Lewis came when the two presidential candidates sparred over abortion.
“For years, male lawmakers have been telling us we can’t have abortions. We have to do it with our bodies. We have to do it with our bodies. We never had control,” Lewis said. “Finally, we have one of us who is a woman who understands that this is about us.”
But Lewis said Harris didn’t quite close the deal with him last night.
“I would like to know more. As we’ve talked about before, this is Trump who’s been campaigning for so long, and now Harris is finally in the spotlight,” Lewis said.
As for Tucson publisher Jeff Herr, Tuesday night was more about Trump’s performance than Harris’s. The self-proclaimed “McCain Republican” did not like how the former president answered questions about the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress met to confirm his defeat in the 2020 election.
“For two and a half hours, when he was walking around the White House and it looked like you were never going to take responsibility for anything?” Herr said about Trump’s refusal to take responsibility.
Paying tribute to the late GOP Sen. John McCain, Herr said Harris’ recent endorsement by McCain’s son was meaningful to him.
Herr also saw a contrast between how Trump and Harris conducted themselves on the debate stage. “It’s a bully Trump,” Herr said of the former president’s on-stage rhetoric. “Harris came out with some decency about him, some presidential character,” Herr said.
Romeo Navarro, 22, voted for Biden in the last round, but leaned toward Trump in the debate. After the debate, Navarro said he was still leaning toward Trump, but that Harris had given him more to think about.
“I will say after this discussion, he definitely has my interest,” the Phoenix native said. But like Lewis, he said there are still many unknowns about the vice president.
“I think there are a lot of question marks about Harris,” he said. “I didn’t know much about him except that he served as vice president, and unfortunately he couldn’t talk about much of his politics today.”
Navarro plans to take it upon himself to investigate Harris before making a final decision on whether to vote.
He said after the debate: “I’ve got to get away from it, now that he’s piqued my interest, I’ve got to kind of do my own research and look at his website.”
But despite his growing interest, Navarro has made it clear that if the election were held today, he would vote for Trump because of his stance on the economy and immigration.
Emma Barnett and Kate Snow reported from Churchville. Alex Tabet and Jacob Soboroff reported from Phoenix.