Winning Over Independent Voters: What Trump and Harris Must Do

It is now less than sixty days until election day, and winning over independent voters is still the most pressing issue for both the Trump and Harris campaigns. To be fair neither side has done a great job on outreach toward winning over independent voters and has mostly continued to feed meat to their base of supporters. As an independent voter in a crucial swing state (registered in Pennsylvania), each campaign could do much better to win over independent voters.

Why Independents Will Be Important

This is fairly obvious now, but it is worth stating that elections are closer than ever before. We no longer see those blowout elections of Ronald Reagan in the 80s or Bill Clinton in the 90s. The country is nearly split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and it is on the margins with independent voters that will make the crucial difference.

Trump beat Hillary in 2016 by a few thousand votes due to tireless campaigning in Rust Belt states that she thought were safely Democrat. In contrast, Trump lost Georgia in 2020 by around 12,000 votes. This is preposterously small when you think in terms of how big our presidential elections are. Much of those 12,000 votes were likely independents that, rightly or wrongly, soured on the tumultuous years of the Trump presidency.

For people in New York, California, or the other Deep South states, yes, your vote likely doesn’t make a difference in the presidential election. But in the states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and a few others, the election will be decided on who can flip the independents. I would argue that just like Biden was in a better position to flip independents in 2020 due to some of the population being worn out with Trump after four years and his handling of Covid, which in retrospect may not have been so bad, Trump is now in a better position to flip independents.

People are now worn out with the fiascos of the Biden/Harris presidency, whether it was Afghanistan, the wars around the world, or his handling of the economy. Trump has a much higher favorability rating on many of these issues. This is why his insistence on not agreeing to a second debate is all the more baffling, but we will get into that later.

In Arizona and Wisconsin in 2020, Biden won by 0.6% with 10,457 and 20,682 votes, respectively. We are a country of around 330 million people, and you are talking about electing the President with around 10,000 votes being the deciding factor. Based on poll data, a large portion of these were independent suburban women voters who decided to give Trump a shot in 2016 and decided to go with stability in 2020. These voters can easily switch to Trump again, especially after seeing inflation and immigration at historic levels for the last four years if he correctly courts them.

Winning Over Independents: What Trump Must Do

Drop the topic of abortion; it’s a losing topic. This is especially true among the suburban women voters who he desperately needs to break his way. It’s one of the areas where Kamala Harris can do major damage to his candidacy. We see even in conservative states such as Kansas when they put abortion on the ballot, the people overwhelmingly vote to keep abortion access. The overturning of Roe v Wade in June of 2022 is in my view one of the major reasons why no “Red Wave” followed in November. The Democrats were failing and the Republicans threw them a desperately needed lifeline.

The hardcore Christian conservatives are already voting for you Donald no matter what, drop the abortion pitch already. To his credit, he has somewhat done this but considering three of the Supreme Court justices he picked were instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade it will be difficult for him to get out from abortion’s shadow as he is still showing by most polls estimates major deficiencies with women.

To win over independents like myself, he must do a better job of tying Kamala Harris to the policies of the extreme progressive wing of the Democratic party. Most middle-of-the-road Americans do not support unlimited, unfettered illegal immigration, children’s books being taught in public schools on being non-binary/Trans, lax criminal laws that endanger the population, and Socialism, amongst others. To this end, he has done an abysmal job up to this point. I often see him relitigating the 2020 election instead of focusing on the ills of progressivism and the future.

Nowhere was this more true than in the debate, where he seemed to be more on the defensive side instead of pushing Harris to defend some extremely progressive positions. When the topic of immigration came up he spent more time talking about if people are entertained at his rallies than slamming Harris for the one thing she was put in charge of during her time as Vice President. Winning over independent voters will take more than just making the case for a fraudulent election that may or more likely may not have occurred.

While it may play to his base, nobody in the middle wants to hear this anymore. We want to hear what you have planned for the future, and there needs to be more of that in the next month and a half.

With Trump not agreeing to another debate with Harris, he is blowing a major opportunity. He had a poor debate showing against Hillary Clinton in the first debate back in 2016 and then came back and arguably won the next one. It is clear he was not adequately prepared for the first debate but there is no reason he cannot come back and slam her on some of the policy issues. After his first debate performance, the bar would be set lower for him this time, and he should be able to deliver more decisive blows.

It’s like when you go into a movie and expect it to be great if it falls short, you’re disappointed, but if you go in and expect it to be awful, even if it’s just average, you’re impressed with it.

However, his campaign seems to have calculated that it is better to not engage in another debate. They are privy to more information than I am but it seems that the more times you can get Kamala to defend her so-so record in front of America the better off you’ll be. I mean even she doesn’t want to defend her record as she makes fewer media appearances than any candidate in recent history As of Sunday sixty-three days without an official press conference. In essence, Trump must make better use of tying Harris to the poor policies of the Biden administration to close out the campaign.

Winning Over Independent Voters: What Harris Must Do

To win us over, Harris needs to tie Trump to Project 2025. Even if it’s all just bullshit, and he has no ties to the project, it still plants that seed of doubt. A lot of the writers and advisors of it were part of his first administration, so there is a link Harris can use. While I happen to agree with Trump’s answer that there are some good ideas and some bad ideas in it, which is the case for most major policy initiatives, the more she can tie it to him, the more difficulty he will have winning over independent voters.

The Democrats have done a decent job so far of turning Project 2025 into this boogeyman for the 2024 election. I have lost count of how many times someone has mentioned on campus, “How can you still be undecided, what about Project 2025.” If Trump ultimately agrees to another debate just as Trump can hit her many policy weaknesses this is a soft spot where she can hit him as she did in the first debate.

What else must Harris do? She needs to put out some policy proposals and not just speak in the word salad that she is famous for. I have very little idea about what her actual ideas are. Every time she speaks she doesn’t answer the question and refuses to say what she would do that’s a new proposal. Even in a friendly Oprah interview she refused to answer a viewer’s question on immigration and offered the usual bungled answer. Oprah had to press her for specifically what she would do, to which she eventually said to bring back the failed border bill.

But there are never any new initiatives from her on anything. I have no idea what she would do of her own volition were she to become president and as someone middle of the road, that makes me suspicious. Why won’t she give more details on specific policies? Is it because when becomes president she will pander to the hard left? This fear could lead me to vote for her opponent because at least I know where he stands. She needs to be more vocal and specific about her policies as this is the only way independents can know how she intends to govern.

Brett Stephens put it well in his column in the New York Times when he said, “ When Harris says “my values have not changed” in the face of questions about her shifting positions on fracking, a border wall, and health care for illegal immigrants, does it suggest any values beyond political expediency?” This gets to the heart of what Harris must do in winning over independent voters: state your beliefs.

She seems so scared to state her actual beliefs out of fear of alienating any voter that she risks alienating everyone. Yes, people will disagree with you but I or we do not have to agree with one-hundred percent of a given candidate’s policies to vote for them. Maybe I agree with sixty percent but that sixty percent is more important to me than whatever I agree with on Trump’s side, then that earns my vote. Solidify your positions and let me evaluate it from there.

Takeaways

This election will likely be decided by the few thousand votes of the independents. Neither of them has done a great job up to this point of making their case. This last month and a half will be crucial in reaching out to as many independents as they can, but this will only work with the proper message. I know most of the polls show Harris winning at this point, but I see problems brewing for her with independents, particularly in the minority communities.

With this election being separated by a few thousand votes, Trump has greatly increased his share of the vote, specifically among Black men and Hispanics. If that trend holds, it could cause trouble, but on the flip side, Harris is increasing her lead among women which could offset Trump’s increase in minority communities. All anyone can truly say is they must keep courting those who are truly persuadable which at this point is not a lot but is what will tip the election. Playing to the base at this stage will ultimately result in the loser going back to Florida or California instead of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Do you think Independent voters are the biggest factor in this election? Which candidate is doing a better job of reaching them? Let us know in the comments below and if you like this kind of article check out my prior article here critiquing the Republicans and Democrats.