The NPR Politics Podcast - Checking In With The Double Haters

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

As campaign season started, many American voters expressed a dislike of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. With Biden's exit from the presidential race, Kamala Harris' entrance, and voting season drawing to a close, how have their views shifted — and is their dislike still strong? This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Shannon in Santa Cruz, California, and I'm about to walk down the aisle to marry the love of my life and fellow NPR politics podcast fan. This podcast was recorded at 1.25 PM on Thursday, October 17th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but my now husband and I will be catching up on our missed pods since we've been in wedding land. Okay, here's the show. I love these times. This has been a banner week of timestamps. Like everyone is better than the last and I am just, oh, I just love picturing a bride about to walk down the island being like, wait, I have to do something first. With headphones on.

Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And before we begin, a reminder, hit the follow button in your podcast app to get notifications every time we have a new episode. Back in May, you two, Susan and Mara, organized a focus group for NPR with so-called double hater voters, 12 swing state voters that disapproved of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Safe to say, a lot has changed since then. Yes. So earlier this week, you went back to those very same voters to figure out where they've

landed in this election. And Sue, let's back it up for a minute and remind us why you cared so much about this group of voters to begin with. At the time when we conceived of these focus groups, when it was a Trump-Biden race, double haters were seen as sort of maybe the demographic of the election. They were estimated to make up as much of a quarter of the electorate, which

would have been a historic high. And we wanted to get inside their heads. So we partnered with Rich Tal of EngageUs and Sego Market Research and we said, look, find us these voters. All 12 of these voters voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and then Joe Biden in 2020, proven swing voters. And 10 of the 12 live in a current swing state. Two of them lived in Minnesota. So back then in May, seven of them were leaning Biden, two were leaning Trump, and three of them said, hey, if these are my options, I'm probably not going to vote at all. We were able to get the views of 10 of the 12. We couldn't reach two of them. And as of today, four of

them are now either leaning or locked in for Trump, five are leaning or locked in for Harris. And one of them still says, I'm not going to vote for either. I'm going to write in a candidate. He didn't know which candidate he was going to write in yet. Mara, this is a very small sample of voters, like not scientific. This is not a poll. This is a focus group. This is a focus group. How do you interpret these shifts? Well, we call this anic data. Polls try to tell us about how big groups of voters are going to vote, what they're going to do. A focus group tries to figure out why they're

going to do it. It's a more in-depth exploration of how they're going to do. A focus group tries to figure out why they're going to do it. It's a more in-depth exploration of how they're feeling. We call this anic data. And the reason why this is important is if we have, for instance, African American man who's voting for Trump, we want to find out why. Or in this case, why were people feeling differently about Harris than they were about Biden when we asked them to sit down and talk to us way back in the spring? So that's why we use a focus group.

All right. So we're going to start with Harris. Tell us how these voters view Vice President Harris. Well, I think the first thing is that Harris entering the race really reduced the ranks of double haters. Only four of these 12 voters said they still considered themselves double haters. And I believe three of those four were now leaning for Donald Trump. So they're still double haters, but they're

coming off the fence. I think Harris, it generates a generally more positive feeling than Joe Biden does. There's a general sense that she's capable. There's not really negative feelings about her. But it was pretty clear that she's still, there's not really negative feelings about her. But it was pretty clear that she's still kind of undefined. I think this is the downside of only having eight to ten weeks to run a general election campaign. And one of these voters is Rob. We only got their first

names, we should note. He's 63 years old. He resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, and he's locked in for Harris. She's not the ideal candidate. I feel that she would be a better commander in chief. I feel that she is more stable and every politician lies. But I think that the lies and the misdirection that have come out of the Republican Party recently have been so absurd. I couldn't think of voting for the Republicans. I think broadly the voters that were leading Harris, I would describe them as more anti-Trump than pro-Harris. It wasn't driven by extreme enthusiasm or liking her a lot. It was just horror of what the alternative was. And I've seen that out in my reporting too.

Sure. Mara, did any of these voters talk about Harris's race or gender? You know, is a female candidate in the race a positive or a negative for them? None of these voters brought up Harris's race or gender unprompted. But when asked about her gender, there were several of them who felt it was a net negative, not for them but for other voters.

Here's Sherilyn. She's 48 years old from Decatur, Michigan. And she is voting for Harris. And you're going to hear the moderator, Rich Tao, ask the question. By a show of fingers, if Vice President Harris loses the election, who will think it will have something to do with her being a woman? Sherrilyn and Eugene.

Sherrilyn, in what way? I'm just not sure if the voters are ready for a female president yet. I'm just, you know, I know they weren't ready for Hillary Clinton and I don't know. There's a lot of people I think that won't vote for somebody just because she's a woman or you know, that's not what a president looks like in their mind. So it's a hurdle. And we should note that in the second focus group, three of the five also said they thought being a woman would be a net negative and it was the women saying that.

So five of these nine voters see the fact that she's a female as potentially something that could cost her the race. And I think this is interesting because we don't actually talk a lot about gender in this campaign because Kamala Harris doesn't talk a lot about her gender in this campaign. But what was really driven home to me by these focus groups is that voters are actually thinking about it a lot. And what Rich would say, because he's done a bunch of these focus groups, no one individually really copps to saying, I wouldn't vote for a woman. But a lot of times

it's a tell when they say, like, I know a lot of people who won't vote for her because she's a woman, that they are hearing it and experiencing it in their day-to-day lives. There's no doubt that being a woman is a net negative for Kamala Harris in this campaign. And what's so interesting, as Sue just said, that she doesn't talk about her gender, she doesn't talk about breaking glass ceilings the way Hillary Clinton did, but Donald Trump does talk a lot about her gender. And he is running an extremely gendered campaign. He talks about her being mentally impaired.

He talks about foreign leaders will see her as a play toy. He talks about her laugh. A big chunk of the attacks on her from Trump are gendered. Danielle Pletka Even if he isn't explicitly saying, look, she's a woman. Danielle Pletka He's about, I don't think he could be too much more explicit when he says foreign leaders will treat her as a play toy. Danielle Pletka Yeah, and there's like an old adage in politics that says like an attack unanswered is an attack that lands. And I think that Trump is very willing to play on gender roles and

stereotypes and without a substantive response, even not just from Harris directly, but Democrats in general. Like it's clearly there's some traction with this idea of just really being skeptical of a woman in the White House. We did not ask our focus groups about race specifically, but he's also running a very racialized campaign. She never brings up her race. He talks about her maybe not really being black or only becoming black recently. So these are big issues for voters. And one of the candidates is not talking about it, and the other one is using it as a pretty important attack line.

Yeah. And I think the theory from her side is she doesn't have to draw attention to it. Certainly not. When she walks in the room, everyone notices. Voters are aware. Yeah. Okay. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, more on what these voters think of former President Trump. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally

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And we're back. And I want to dig into the Trump side of this focus group. Mara, can you tell us more about the shifts that you saw among these former double haters toward Trump and, you know, who they are, what moved them? Yeah, this was very interesting. This is Jennifer. She's 62 from Atlanta, Georgia. She said she was going to vote for Biden back in May, but now she is back to Trump, who she voted for in 2016. Some of his policies are more aligned with where I voted and how I have leaned in the past.

And so he had four years, he's a known entity. Harris is somewhat unknown to me. So there you have somebody who voted for Trump in 2016, voted for Biden. Maybe she was just exhausted by all the Trump chaos, but now she's going back to Trump. And she says that Harris is unknown to her, but she made it clear in other comments that Harris gives her some doubts about the economy going forward. All right. So as we say, these are all voters who rejected Trump in 2020. Do they still have concerns about how he would govern? And I guess, do those concerns

matter? This part was really interesting to me because there was one enthusiastic Trump voter who had no doubts about him, but the other three who were leaning Trump were very forward to say like, they're actually a little afraid of him. They're a little bit afraid of what he might do for the country, but they still might vote for him. And I think that was really captured in this exchange between Rich and one of our voters, Kimberly. She's 51 years old. She's from Cave Creek, Arizona, which is in the suburbs of Phoenix. These are two such different people. How can I not make up my mind between this? This is like between Coca-Cola and a baseball bat. Oh, 100%. And it's scary, especially the community that we live in is definitely 99.9% Trump.

So I am an outlier and even within my family, I'm an outlier, but he scares me for so many reasons and having as much power as a president does in his hands scares me a little bit. But at the same time, I know what our family has been through with the economy recently, and I can't be 100% on board with what's going on with the economy either. Look, and she said she feels currently 50-50 divided between Harris and Trump, but when Rich really pushed her, she seemed pretty likely that she was going to vote for Trump. To me, this is one of the big red flashing lights I heard in this focus group because But when Rich really pushed her, she seemed pretty likely that she was going to vote for Trump. To me, this is one of the big red flashing lights I heard in this focus group because

both Jennifer and Kimberly are women. They voted for Biden in 2020. They are both supportive of abortion rights. I told you these demographics, Tam, you think, oh, these have got to be Harris voters, and they have moved back to Trump. And that is a problem for Kamala Harris. She needs to keep the Biden coalition together. And again, anecdotal. These are just two women. But it does tell you that they exist. They're real. And losing a critical number of this

type of voter could be very dangerous for the Harris campaign. Yeah. And you've got to, the thing that's so important is that as Sue has said, she has not reassembled the Biden coalition. She is not doing as well as he was at this point in the campaign in 2020 with African Americans, Hispanics, young people, and independents. She's not there yet. We also talked to Rich about this because, again, he did our focus groups, but he's been doing swing voter focus groups all year long. You could argue he's talked to more swing voters in America than almost anyone. And his take on this is if you're sitting here

today, whatever, 17, 18 days from the election and you're undecided, you haven't ruled out voting for Trump. Everyone that's ruled out voting for Trump has decided, pretty much ruled it out. And that for those voters they tend to be, as you heard with Kimberly, what he would call pocketbook voters. And there is a sense of economic nostalgia for the Trump years, even if you didn't like the character or the personality or the drama, there is a sense with these voters that they just had more money in their pocket when he was president and they want that again. Well, groceries did get more expensive. There was inflation. There was a pandemic. There is truth to that and there was a very long exchange with Kimberly and she said, look, like my grocery bill is double what it was a year ago.

She's recently lost her job. She's looking for work. Like, she's genuinely concerned about putting food on the table, which is sometimes just your more immediate concern than like, what does democracy look like under the next president, frankly? And these voters, all of them seem to connect a president and his powers with the strength or weakness of the economy, which we know is not actually true. There are a lot of external events that cause prices to go up and down. But these voters remember the Trump years and they assume that he can make that same kind of economy happen again.

Right. And there are a lot of rose-colored glasses on the Trump years. This is something that the Harris campaign has been trying to break through. One question I have is Harris has been talking a lot about Trump as a threat to democracy, Trump as a danger. He did just recently talk about using the military against enemies from within. But is that an argument that would be persuasive with these voters? Not according to Rich Tau and what we heard in our focus groups. Very small sample, obviously, but no, the Trump ad for democracy is just too abstract. You could also argue that being very concerned about democracy is a bit of an elite problem if you are an American who is struggling to make day-to-day ends meet.

And there are two Americas in that regard. And a lot of the Harris coalition is more affluent, higher educated voters who tend to think of maybe more existential questions in this election if they're not worried about their gas bill or their grocery bill. So considering all of this ANIC data and this deep dive into the psyche of these voters and what the polls look like right now. What is your takeaway on the state of the race? I don't think we can stress enough how undefined Harris still remains to a critical

segment of the electorate. And I think that's a really precarious place to be. Trump for all of his strengths and weaknesses, people feel like they know him and they're very aware of what his negatives and positives are. And it and weaknesses, people feel like they know him and they're very aware of what his negatives and positives are. And it's almost like they feel like they're making a more informed either affirmation of rejection of him. She's got a bit of a question mark. Again, these undecided voters do make a call in the final weeks. I think she just needs them to break big her way. And that's just a big question mark to me. And I would just say this is an election of all the elections I've covered, all 8,000

of them. This is the hardest to understand. Yeah. Yeah. Because, and of course I always say covering politics is an exercise in humility because every day you get to find out all the ways that you were wrong. But in the beginning we said whichever candidate can make this election a referendum on the other guy is gonna win because they're both unpopular. And that was supposed to hurt Trump. In other words, Trump is defined, but he's defined negatively in a lot of ways. Harris is a blank slate.

We're saying that that's a negative for her, but it can be a positive. The other thing about people saying they need to know more about her can be a proxy for I'm just not comfortable voting for a black woman. It's very hard to tease that out. But I think that in terms of the fundamentals of this race, this should be Trump's to lose. He should have a lead right now outside of the margin of error. He's running against a historically unpopular administration. Despite all the good economic news, 59% of voters still say the economy is getting worse.

We know that inflation, or let's put it this way, not the rate of inflation, but high prices, is the most important political economic indicator. Inflation defeats presidents. And even though she has some advantages, she's running against someone who was impeached twice, defeated once, and convicted of 34 felonies, she has not been able to reassemble the Biden coalition and develop an actual lead outside the margin of error. Neither of these candidates have been able to do that. That's why this race is so close. Yeah, it's extraordinarily tight and I can make the case for how Harris wins and how Trump wins equally. And as Mar said, I can't wait for election day or election week to find out where we were wrong. We're wrong about something and we'll know soon enough. It's impossible to always be right. All right, we're going to leave it there

for today. We will be back in your feeds tomorrow with the weekly roundup. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Eliason, senior national political correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Who's claiming power this election? What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the electoral college? All this month, the Throughline Podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the Throughline Podcast from NPR.