We spoke to some Kamala-but-not-Joe voters. This is what they said.

In our recent survey of voters in battleground states, we asked how people would vote if Kamala Harris were to run for president. Although Donald J. Trump was still in the lead in this hypothetical showdown, Vice President Harris performed slightly better than President Biden.

She did especially well among young and non-white voters — voters who were a key to Biden’s 2020 victory but who the poll suggests are less supportive of him this time around.

The voters who supported her but not Mr. Biden — about 5 percent of swing-state voters — would have given Mr. Biden the lead in the Times/Siena polls if they had backed him.

We called back some of these Harris supporters to understand why they didn’t support Mr. Biden and whether he could win them over.

They show the serious challenges Biden faces. Some said he was too old, or they thought he hadn’t done much as president. Black voters in particular said they didn’t believe he was doing enough to help black Americans.

They also point to the opportunities for Mr. Biden. While many said they would likely vote for Mr. Trump, almost all said they were unenthusiastic about either option, and that Mr. Trump had personally insulted them. For some, Democratic messages on issues important to them, such as abortion and the economy, had not reached them.

In a striking indication of how uneasy voters are about another year ahead, many of them expressed a different opinion during the follow-up interviews than they did during the survey. In response to neutral questions, some who had said they were unsure became more certain of their support for either candidate by the end of the interview, and others switched support after recalling their impressions of both candidates and more had discussed their priority issues.

A phone conversation with a New York Times reporter is not the same as a conversation with friends or family. It is also not the same as a campaign ad. But it was a chance for a group of voters, some of whom were relatively uninvolved, to think about the candidates, issues and campaigns.

Here’s how the Harris supporters broke down:

Harris super fans

If Ms. Harris were to run for president, Bridgette Miro, 52, a retired state worker in Glendale, Arizona, who is black, would vote for her “one hundred thousand percent.”

She likes the work Ms. Harris did in California, where she was attorney general and U.S. senator before becoming vice president. She likes ‘the way she handles herself’. She likes that “her skin color looks like my skin color.”

In the poll and at the start of the interview, Ms. Miro said she would vote for Mr. Trump this election. She is a Republican who said, “I have no feeling at all” about the job Mr. Biden has done as president. But by the end, she had shifted her support to Mr. Biden after recalling her negative views of Mr. Trump, who she said was racist and not doing enough to prevent police violence against black people.

“All my frustration stems from the murder of black individuals,” she said. “If we can have someone in office who can provide a little bit of control over the police, that gives us a little bit of hope.”

And then there was Mrs. Harris: “If she’s on the ticket, I’m going to vote for her. It’s Kamala against everyone.”

‘She’s a black woman’

“I just think she has a lot more to offer than the standard straight, old white guy,” said a 40-year-old artist in Georgia, who declined to share her name because she feared a backlash over the country’s polarization. “I like the idea of ​​a female lawyer.”

A lifelong Democrat, she said in the poll that she would vote for Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden, whom she called “too old and a bit out of touch” and “a bit of a dork.” Still, she believes the country’s problems had more to do with gerrymandered congressional districts than with Mr. Biden. At the end of the interview, she said she will “probably vote for him again – I’m just not happy about it.”

Antonio Maxon, 25, a garbage collector in Farrell, Pennsylvania, still plans to vote for Mr. Trump. But he likes Ms. Harris for a simple reason: “She’s a black woman.” He said he lost faith in the political system after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. It is important to him, he said, “just to see a woman, a woman in power, because I was raised mainly by women.” He added: “My father wasn’t there, my mother raised me, my grandmother raised me.”

Crime and police brutality

For some black voters, Ms. Harris’ racial identity matters not only for representation, but also because they say it gives her insight into the issues they face. It highlights a factor that may be driving some black people out of the Democratic Party. For years it was seen as advancing the interests of black voters, but these voters felt Biden had not done enough, when a black president might have.

“I feel like she would probably do more for us because I feel like not enough is being done for black people,” said Sonji Dunbar, 32, a program specialist for the Boys and Girls Club in Columbus, Georgia. In a very urban area there is crime, so I feel like she could influence more programs to at least reduce crime and address police brutality.”

Not Joe Biden

“Honestly, it was more of a choice that it just wasn’t Joe Biden,” said Clara Carrillo-Hinojosa, a 21-year-old financial analyst in Las Vegas, of her support for Ms. Harris. She said she would probably vote for Mr. Trump: “Personally, I think we did a lot better when he was president, price-wise, money-wise, income-wise.”

Still, in some ways, Ms. Carrillo-Hinojosa is the kind of voter Biden hopes can win once people start focusing on the race. Mr. Trump has insulted her as a woman, she said, and she likes some of the things Mr. Biden has done, including his support for Israel.

Above all, she said, she strongly supports abortion rights — and didn’t realize that Mr. Biden does, too. She said she assumed he was to blame because abortion bans in states had gone into effect during his presidency. Despite her misgivings about the economy, support for abortion rights would likely ultimately determine her vote, she said.

Mr. Maxon, the 25-year-old garbage collector in Pennsylvania, considers himself a Democrat, even though this election would be his first ballot. The war between Israel and Hamas has made him question Mr. Biden’s handling of foreign affairs, and he recalls the policies under Mr. Trump that helped him.

“My biggest thing is that I don’t see America falling to pieces,” he said. “I think Biden is being way too soft on this war – on Hamas, Iran, Iraq, the whole nine yards. What I like about Trump is that he kept everyone at a distance and didn’t want to mess with America.”

Mr. Maxon, who is black, said that Mr. Trump had made racist comments but that he still plans to vote for him. “He has helped countless Black people, more than Biden by a landslide,” he said. He said this was done specifically through pandemic unemployment aid and other relief funding early in the pandemic (the Biden administration also distributed relief funding).

Not a good option

Ms. Dunbar, the 32-year-old from Georgia, is a Democrat but had no positive things to say about either candidate and is unsure who to vote for.

“I don’t know too much or hear too much about what he’s doing,” she said of Biden’s presidency. She leaned toward Mr. Trump in the poll, but in the interview she said he seemed to be carrying too much baggage — comments he made about women, generalizations about racial or ethnic groups, the charges against him.

She says it’s important to vote, even if you’re on the fence. Democrats have one thing going for them, she said: support for the issue that matters most to her: women’s rights.

“Abortion plays a role in that,” she said. “I still like that women can choose what they do with their bodies. And the way things have gone, it’s a women’s agenda, period. Not just black women, but women in general.”