"I just don't know enough about Kamala Harris..."

The problem with voters and elections is that we think it is about the candidates and the issues. (The Trump issue is all a straw man...). But it is not. The voter is filling out the ballot, and at that moment, it is about them. Very very few might think about the welfare of a bigger group. No, it is 90 plus percent about that voter. The information is collected and sort of stored as a combined gut feel. And then you pick one. It's that simple. Often times there is a bias against the party in party, and that too is not actual math. The president and party in power simply must be punished. My view of the election includes the US Constitution and our voting rights. Sadly, this is irrelevant to the average voter. The average voter is not "low information" but is closer to that than I am.

"I don't like Trump, but I just don't trust Democrats. They are like lawyers. In fact most of them are lawyers. Kamala..."

People have strong feelings about presidential candidates. I have heard Trump talking hundreds of times. I remember things my governor said, but I don't even remember what he sounds like.

There are the so called low information voters who don't know how to vote, and then there are the ones voting on some single issue. It's not exactly known how we decide on a vote. You can do all the psychology experiments and still won't know much. I've listed the Tversky-Kahneman type of factors in earlier posts. The voters with firm beliefs and a lifetime of voting one party can best explain why they voted.

But here we are. What do we do about these people?

Not much. They are not going to be able to decide better no matter how many Trump facts you present. On the other hand, some won't vote at all, as Trump is not gaining voters.

So what is there to do? Make sure polls are not under Trump folk attacks and intimidation. Make sure the people who we have had all along remember to vote. For them, you can paint the scary picture of the Trump world.

So if you have a lot of time on hand and are just reading these social media posts all day, take a break. Fall is a beautiful time in most parts of the country. Enjoy the outdoors. It's only about a month anymore.

On the lighter side, I posted a Threads post on the undecided voter. They can't even pick a lunch meat out of these two. How can they pick a president?

ADDED Oct 3

Trump legal cases moving along. There was an insurrection. Do the undecided voters

know anything? MSNBC town hall Trump voter to Alex Wagner: there were just some riots in DC.

If Obama had tried to overthrow the election he would be in jail.

Polls are....polls

In 2016 and 2020 there was polling error. The factors were different. Let us just say it was complicated.

Kamala is looking to beat Trump in PA. However, it is harder to poll states than the country. Therefore the most recent poll seems to drive the state data presented at 

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

But polls are polls, and are not really facts. Rasmusen is skewed, Fox poll is occasionally realistic. But the setup for polls is not random. They are fixed to have the same numbers of democrats, independents and republicans as are registered to vote.

The tossup map is worth a look. It seems to be up to date.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/maps/president/2024/no-toss-up/electoral-college

Note that the table gives PA to Harris but the MAP above does not. With PA included Harris gets 276.

Even that is not news. And as for news, Trump is still getting too much news. He is running a risky campaign as many people out there are mad at him. Maybe just stick to the putting green and driving range, Mr Trump? He did not he ran a Nazi rally in NY.

It's still the low information voter

I know, and the media knows, that the election will be decided by people that really don't care about elections or politics. Yet, there must be some way to reach them. These people will not watch the debate. They certainly can choose based on a very unconscious gut reaction.

Kamala has to get to the 3% over Trump level (arrow) to safely win the battleground states. There, PA is the key. Polling there is not telling us much. She may still win at 2%, but there will then be recounts. We want to avoid those due to GOP manipulation of ballots.

So what will happen after the debate? This sort of a boxing match now. Kamala has to get a few hard punches at Trump. He has to be suffering and give the appearance of a loser on the little information that trickles through to the low information voter. Mainly through social media but also through their friends. They will get the general impression of the state of Trump. This is maybe the FIRST TIME in 12 years that there is a good chance to make Trump look like a loser. And make it stick.

(I may add a poll to this post a week or two after the debate.)

Other than two candidates, voters also base their voting on two things:

1 how they feel the economy

2 the vague "country is going in the wrong direction."

That second one is pretty much why they always want a NEW president, every four years. Here we have the problem of separating Kamala from Biden.

As for the economy, the voter may well be right in deciding that the party in power is responsible for the government part of the economy. The normal economic cycles are a fuzzy concept to them. But the facts do not really get to the voter, and there is a lag time of up to a year to see any affect the current administration has on the economy. Working class will only remember that "Biden tried to forgive student loans for those college folks."