Undecided, unsatisfied and unpredictable: Meet the swing voters of 2020
Yes, they’re still deciding.
Some are unsatisfied. Others are genuinely torn. And then there are those who won’t make up their minds until the very last minute — even about whether to participate at all.
Iowa Democrats will hold the first contest of the 2020 presidential race Monday night, and their New Hampshire counterparts will weigh in eight days later. But after a year-long deluge of candidate visits, nationally televised debates and millions of dollars in ads, a significant crop of early-state residents remain in the same place they started: on the fence.
Call them the vacillating voters. They’re not necessarily ideologically driven. They don’t spend their days scrolling through Twitter or absorbed by cable news chyrons. They’re largely motivated by their gut.
And they help explain why the Democratic primary remains so volatile and unsettled, even at the eleventh hour before the opening contest.
“I’m not super-duper way liberal. I’m more a middle-of-the-road Democrat,” said Paul Keriazes of Manchester, N.H. Nonetheless, after shaking Deval Patrick’s hand on downtown Elm Street recently, he still indicated he likes Bernie Sanders “a lot.”
When asked how his centrist tendencies might lead him to support the candidate championing the most progressive platform in a generation, Keriazes replied, “It’s funny. I don’t know. We got to know him pretty well last year and he just seems kind of more genuine as a leader.”
Meanwhile, his wife Diane, who supported Sanders last time, added she’s “very open right now.”
Interviews with more than two dozen prospective Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire over the last few weeks revealed this complicated dynamic: Many voters are not only uncommitted, they’re unpredictable — often turning the preconceived notions of the plugged-in political class on their heads.
“Too often, we assume voters vote with an Excel spreadsheet of policy positions,” said Jesse Ferguson, a longtime Democratic strategist and veteran of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “And in the end, it’s about the totality of what the candidates stand for and who they are that resonates with some voters more than others. That can’t always be plotted on a spectrum of ideology.”
This indecision has also been reflected in public surveys. A Monmouth University poll released last week found that 45 percent of likely Iowa caucus-goers were still open to switching the candidate they support.
Elizabeth Warren is campaigning on dramatic structural changes to the federal government. Amy Klobuchar has run on a more pragmatic platform that argues much of what Warren is promising isn’t possible.
Yet Cydney Kelley of Cedar Falls, Iowa is wrestling between the two of them.
“It’s funny because their policies are kind of different but honestly I just go with who I like in my heart,” she said.
“It’s hard this year. We like a lot of them,” added her mother, Linda Kelley.
Even looks can be deceiving.
Jae Larsen showed up to a house party for Joe Biden in Bow, N.H. wearing a Pete Buttigieg cap. But afterwards, she said she was simply donning it to conceal a bad hair day.
“I don’t see him as a viable candidate right now,” she said of Buttigieg, with the brim of the “Pete 2020” cap hanging over her eyes. “I’m just assuming his handlers are grooming him. I hope he makes a run for a Senate office or at least a congressional seat, because I do think there’s a place for him. But it’s not in this election cycle.”
Instead, she was more interested in Tom Steyer, who had created a program that facilitated lending to female and minority small business owners back in Oregon, where she used to live.
Warren has been hailed for the depth and specificity of her policy plans, but Larsen wasn’t buying it.
“Once she gets pushed on a lot of her policy, I don’t know if I feel like there’s the depth to it,” she complained.
Sometimes voters know the intimate details of a candidate’s policies and don’t like what they see. DeWitt Crosby, a 70-year-old lifelong Democrat from Charlotte, said she was interested in Warren until she learned more about the Massachusetts senator’s agenda, which includes a wealth tax placed on some of the country’s richest citizens.
“She comes across as really anti-capitalism,” Crosby said.
She said she might vote for Sanders, a democratic socialist who also supports a wealth tax, in North Carolina’s March 3 Super Tuesday primary, citing his strong support among young voters like her children.
As he stood at the back of an American Legion to take in a Tulsi Gabbard event, Bob McCabe, an independent voter in Dover, N.H., expressed gripes about the entire field.
“Bernie’s too old. [Mike] Bloomberg’s too old. Elizabeth’s too old. They’re too old. Too old. They’re all 70-plus years-old,” McCabe said, who would only reveal he wasn’t yet in his 70s. “Seventy-seven, you’re too old. You’re just not up to it. It wipes out the whole list.”
“Buttigieg is too young,” he continued as the 38-year-old Gabbard entered the room, “This woman, I admire her for running, but she’s too young.”
“The guy who is actually as close to the right age is Deval Patrick,” McCabe said of the 63-year-old former Massachusetts governor.
Relayed to him that Patrick would be campaigning in Portsmouth the following day, McCabe mentioned to his wife that they should perhaps make the trip.
Albert Peel, a Vietnam veteran who stood on the other side of the room to see Gabbard, said he would vote for the Hawaii congresswoman in the primary, but would not consider her in a general election.
“He’s Bozo the clown, ok?,” he said of President Donald Trump, but nevertheless, “I’ll vote for Donnie. She’s not old enough yet, ok? She’s got to get seasoned. … I asked her if she would actually go over and help Donald Trump. What a concept if she went over and offered her expertise!”
Jayne Powell, a 35-year-old Exeter, N.H. resident, hasn’t heard enough about Gabbard or Buttigieg, so she’s ruled them out. She likes Sanders and Warren, but to her, “they almost seem like the same candidate,” so Biden is an option as well.
Most of the top candidates have spent the final days making their closing arguments about how they are best positioned to defeat Trump. For Powell, it’s a turnoff.
“I like candidates that focus on issues and not, ‘I’m going to beat Trump.’ Like ok, that’s great. Or focusing on all the negative things about Trump. Like we’ve all heard it. I just want to hear what you want to do,” she said.
Still, she worries about electability, simply because of Trump’s confidence.
“The news that I see, it seems like he thinks he’s got this slam-dunked, already,” she said.
And then are those who seem to be enjoying being courted. Randy Folkerts of Des Moines said he’ll probably caucus for the first time on Monday, but has no idea which corner of the room he’ll end up in. Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg all remain options. Like his candidates, Folkerts has a long list of issues important to him too, listing electability, education, health care and foreign affairs as factors he’s weighing.
But perhaps most exciting to him is that whoever he ends up choosing will matter.
“I could be a swing vote,” he said with a grin.
Alex Roarty reported from Iowa; David Catanese reported from New Hampshire
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
