Are there any convincing voters left?

With each election cycle, the idea of ​​true swing voters seems more and more remote. We live in an age of intense partisanship, and only a handful of states are truly competitive in the Electoral College.

To make matters even grimmer, the 2024 presidential race is shaping up to be a battle between a current and a former president who have been in public life for decades. Whether you like them or not – and many voters fall into the last category – most people made up their minds about President Biden and former President Donald Trump years ago.

When I asked Patrick Murray, the polling director at Monmouth University, who the persuasive voters of 2024 might be, he joked, “Do you want me to name them individually?” Because I probably could at this point.

And yet, even in a likely rematch, and at a moment of deep political tribalism, a few constituencies — a piece of a piece of a piece of the electorate — remain up for grabs. You can bet that both campaigns will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve them.

In interviews with pollsters and political strategists this week, some asked familiar questions about groups of voters who have been closely studied in recent election cycles.

Can Republicans break through to the suburban women who have strongly distanced themselves from the party in the Trump era? Can Democrats win back Latino men, especially those without college degrees? What are those Trump 2016-Biden 2020 voters doing now?

In the seemingly inevitable rematch between Biden and Trump, there are also other, less traditional ways to think about persuadable voters.

Here are a few key groups to watch:

The double haters

Voters who dislike both major party candidates have played a key role in the last two presidential elections, ultimately leaning toward Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. These voters are poised to become even more important this year.

“That will probably be a larger group than ever before,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “These are people who believe that both men are too old to serve effectively. They want someone younger.”

Will it be Trump or Biden who can convince more of those voters to hold their noses and reluctantly support them? Can the double haters be persuaded to pull the lever for an unconvincing major-party candidate, rather than voting for a third-party option? Can they even be convinced to come out?

The result could tip the election in crucial battleground states.

“They tend to be predominantly blue-collar, they tend to be a little more female, they tend to be a little older,” said Celinda Lake, a prominent Democratic pollster. “They also tend to vote for third parties, especially the younger side.”

She called the double haters “the most important category that no one is talking about.”

The non-tribalists

For many Americans, political loyalty has become so central to their identity that disputes can break friendships, divide families and create marital tensions — tensions that have soared in the Trump era.

For example, white evangelical Christians were once associated with regular church attendance and opposition to abortion rights. As my colleagues Ruth Graham and Charles Homans have reported, being evangelical also often describes “a cultural and political identity” in which Trump plays an outsized role.

“Politics has become the most important identity,” Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist minister, told Ruth and Charles. “Everything else is behind partisanship.”

But that is not universal. Monmouth's Murray said there are still some voters whose identities aren't closely tied to their politics — and they may be up for grabs. “These are the persuadable voters,” he said, “who do not accept the doomsday scenarios that both parties put out if the other party wins.”

It is difficult but not impossible to identify those voters by looking at the strength of their party identification “and the extent to which they accept the validity of the other party,” he said. But they certainly exist, and they could play a big role in a closely fought election.

“It's not necessarily about demographics, or economic concerns or issues,” he said, but rather the extent to which “they have translated their sense of self in society into a political identity.”

The Republicans who can't support a criminal

Trump faces 91 felonies in four indictments, with one trial set to begin March 25.

This is uncharted territory: No former US president has faced a single criminal charge. And as my colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote, the potential political fallout for Trump arising from the first trial, over a hush-money case, is far from clear.

Republicans have long been circling Trump, especially on these allegations.

But for the time being, this is also reflected in polls at least some Republicans would have difficulty Supporting Trump if he is convicted of a crime. And pollsters are watching these voters closely.

“If Donald Trump were convicted of a crime by a jury, it's pretty clear that about a quarter of Republicans would be looking for an alternative,” said Ayres, the Republican pollster.

A December New York Times/Siena College poll that reached a similar conclusion also found that another 20 percent of those who identified themselves as Trump supporters said he should go to prison if convicted in the federal case in Washington, in which he is accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. And 23 percent of his supporters said they believed he had committed “serious federal crimes,” up from 11 percent in July.

The people tentatively expressing reservations about supporting Trump if he is convicted are likely “better educated voters who are not very conservative,” Ayres said. “Generally speaking, it's a group of people who believe that a convicted felon should not be the head of the Department of Justice,” he added.

Some could sit out the election or vote for a third party, or support Republican candidates but skip the top of the ticket. And certainly, when election time comes, many Americans will eventually don their red or blue sweaters.

This one is going to sting

Donald Trump took a huge hit today in the two places that hurt him most: his wallet and his image as a business wizard.

A state judge in New York has ordered Trump to pay a $355 million fine, plus interest, for years of fraud by lying about the value of his real estate portfolio. As part of his decision, the judge, Arthur Engoron, also banned Trump from running any business in New York — including his own company, the Trump Organization — for three years.

The company has been at the center of Trump's public persona as a wealthy businessman for decades. And in the smallest bright spot for Trump, Judge Engoron has not permanently taken control of it from him. Still, the ruling — should it stand while Trump appeals — will have significant consequences for the former president's assets.

Whatever financial pain Trump now faces was matched by the damage the decision did to his ego and to his image as a jet-setting billionaire and chief executive, a carefully crafted public face that helped him become the first reality TV star. to become stardom. and then to the White House.

“Their complete lack of remorse and remorse borders on the pathological,” Judge Engoron wrote of Trump and his co-defendants in the case, including his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr.

The judge also said that the charge of “inflating the value of assets to make money” was “not a mortal sin” and that Trump, his sons and two of his top associates at the company “did not rob a bank at gunpoint.” And yet, Judge Engoron concluded, “defendants are unable to admit their error. Instead, they adopt a 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' attitude that is belied by the evidence.”

It was not immediately clear how quickly Trump and the others, who faced smaller verdicts, will have to come up with the money. The ruling's provision banning Trump from applying for loans in New York in the next three years could make it challenging to obtain the bond he must submit to the court if he appeals the decision.

Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, described the ruling as a “manifest injustice – plain and simple. It's the culmination of a multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt designed to “take down Donald Trump” before Letitia James ever entered the attorney general's office. Countless hours of testimony have proven that there was no wrongdoing, no crime and no victim.”

— Alan Feuer And Maggie Haberman

Trump privately supports a 16-week abortion ban

Former President Donald Trump has told advisers and allies that he supports a national 16-week abortion ban, with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the mother's life, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. case. Trump's deliberations.

Trump has studiously avoided taking a clear position on abortion restrictions since Roe v. Wade was overturned in mid-2022, boosting Democrats ahead of that year's midterm elections. He has said privately that he wants to wait until the Republican presidential primary is over to publicly discuss his views because he does not want to risk alienating social conservatives before securing the nomination, the two people said.

Trump has taken a transactional approach to abortion since he became a candidate in 2015, and his current private conversations reflect that same approach.

One thing Trump likes about a federal ban on sixteen-week abortions is that it's a round number. “You know what I like about 16?” Trump told one of these people, who spoke anonymously to describe a private conversation. 'It is the same. It's four months.”

— Maggie Haberman And Jonathan Swan

Read the full story here.