Over little more than a week, former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, President Joe Biden decided not to seek another term and Vice President Kamala Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee in his stead. And amid the churn, a new focus group of a key set of potential swing voters — supporters of Nikki Haley in the 2024 primaries — shows just how hardened voter views of the 2024 election are.
Those who applauded Trump for adopting a conciliatory tone in the aftermath of the July 13 shooting now feel that he reverted to being the candidate they voted against in the Republican presidential nominating contest. Those who said they would vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in the fall were all already on board before Biden’s announcement.
And those who were on the fence regarding the 2024 presidential race still feel like they are stuck there.
The conversations — as part of the NBC News Deciders Focus Group series, produced in collaboration with Engagious, Syracuse University and Sago — show that this group of people, who cast votes protesting against Trump’s Republican coronation earlier this year, are by and large unhappy with their choices in the fall.
Three participants plan to vote for Democrats again, just like they did in 2020. One currently plans not to vote. The remaining 10 focus group participants evenly split their votes between Trump and third-party candidates, either reluctantly choosing Trump because of their broader support for GOP policies or choosing a protest vote to signal their frustration with the direction of the party.
“It may depend on where the tears fall on the ballot to determine who I cast my vote for,” said Audra B., a 53-year-old from Arizona, speaking about the choice between Trump and Harris. “I don’t like either one of them, but I’m also not going to not have my chance to vote. There are a lot of women who came before me to make sure I get this opportunity and I don’t want to squander that.”
After eyeing both major party candidates and the third-party and independent options, Audra said, she’s currently planning to vote for Libertarian Chase Oliver after voting for Trump in 2020.
Two others said that they supported Oliver, but unlike Audra, they both supported third-party candidates in 2020, too.
“I think the Libertarian mostly falls in line with my views more than the other three [third-party candidates]. So it’s kind of, showing support for those ideas, and then hopefully people can see that there is a constituent out there and try to attract them more for the next election,” said Jason L., a 34-year-old from Arizona.
“This would be the third presidential election in a row that I voted Libertarian and it has been a protest vote previously, as well as this election,” said John D., a 49-year-old from Wisconsin.
“And while I struggle with the fact that my candidate that I’m voting for doesn’t have the opportunity to win, kind of similar to what Jason said, my hope would be that the Libertarian candidate would gain enough votes to capture the attention of the other two parties and perhaps move their platform in that direction,” he continued.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a group that didn’t back Trump in the GOP primary, the voters’ impressions of Trump were broadly negative. When asked to say the first word that came to mind upon hearing his name, virtually all said something negative, including “egotistical,” “bombastic,” “polarizing” and “bully.”
“I like the way he ran the country, but I do not like the way he downgrades people. He calls people’s names, things like that. That’s uncalled for, he needs to improve that,” said Ronnie B., a 71-year-old from North Carolina who is backing Trump.
The responses when Harris’ name was mentioned were more mixed. Most of the positive sentiment was from those already planning to vote Democratic in November. But Barbara Z., a 62-year-old Michigander who plans to support Trump in the fall, just like she did in 2020, said Harris was “interesting.”
“I just like that she’s a woman. It’s time to have a woman in the forefront,” Barbara said when asked what she liked about Harris. (She also said that she appreciated Trump’s handling of the economy but that he “thinks only for himself and not for the country.”)
That said, most of these voters were lukewarm on Harris, at best broadly unfamiliar with specific policies or stances she’s taken. Many were critical of her, describing Harris as “sometimes catty,” “giggly” or “condescending,” or saying that sometimes she sounds like “word salad” when she speaks.
“I think she’s out of her league, and there’s a lot more people, men or women — I mean, I’m saying women — that would be better qualified for that role,” said Dale J., a 67-year-old Minnesotan who is backing Trump.
“Harris would have real challenges winning over most of these former Haley voters. They overwhelmingly questioned her readiness for the job despite her three and a half years as vice president,” said Margaret Talev, director of Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism & Citizenship in Washington.
“Several said they still don’t know much about her or associate her with Biden administration failures to control illegal immigration, and some raised gendered concerns about traits such as the way she laughs.”
Haley finished second to Trump in the GOP primary, in some ways serving as an outlet for Republican-aligned voters to call for their party to move in a different direction instead of anointing Trump. Her criticism of Trump got more heated in the final weeks of her campaign before she dropped out (she referred to Trump as “unhinged” and “more diminished” in a February interview with NBC News, and said in January that “the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the one who wins this election.”
Even after she dropped out, significant shares of Republican primary voters were still casting their ballots for her (including a handful of focus group participants).
But even though Haley later came around, speaking at the Republican convention and endorsing Trump, these voters weren’t swayed by her words, which they saw as more about her trying to stay politically viable.
Biden’s decision, and the one facing Harris
The massive shakeup at the top of the likely Democratic ticket didn’t change the minds of any participants as to which party they’d support in the fall. And they broadly agreed with the decision Biden made, even as they were, at times, critical of the president.
“I do praise him because at the end of the day, he’s doing it for something higher than himself, he’s doing it for his party. So good on him. It’s not my party necessarily, but he’s doing something selfless,” said Zach R., a 30-year-old Wisconsinite supporting Trump.
Jennifer S., a 49-year-old from Pennsylvania who said she’s leaning toward backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after voting for Trump in 2020, disagreed.
“I don’t think he did it because it was the right thing to do. He did it because he had to,” she said.
One main reason contributing to the lack of movement among these voters despite Biden’s big decision is that 10 of the 14 said that Harris represents a continuation of the Biden administration’s policies, of which they were broadly critical.
“Many Haley primary voters watched the Democrats switch from Biden to Harris, and concluded the party has traded one set of candidate shortcomings for another,” said Rich Thau, president of Engagious, who moderated the sessions.
But these voters largely dismissed Republican attacks on Biden arguing that he should resign from office if he can’t run for another term, as well as the argument that the move to promote Harris despite her not participating in the Democratic presidential nominating process this cycle is somehow anti-democratic.
“The way I view it is the votes that were cast for Biden, were cast for the Biden-Harris ticket. So if Biden isn’t on the ticket, I believe it’s still a vote for Harris regardless because he had already identified her as his running mate,” said John D., the Wisconsinite voting for the Libertarian nominee.
Not only did Harris’ elevation to the status of Democratic presidential front-runner change no one’s mind, there’s apparently little she can do with her vice presidential pick to bring these voters on board — outside of bringing Haley onto a unity ticket.
That said, Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly appeared to be more familiar to this group of voters than other potential vice presidential contenders.
“Mark Kelly is the only name that comes to mind,” Cristel T. a 59-year-old from Georgia who voted for Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for Harris now.
“He was an astronaut.”
Trump changes, and then reverts
Eight of these voters said that their views on Trump changed after he faced an assassination attempt. But that was short-lived for most, largely because they believe Trump backtracked on his call for unity.
“I listened to the entire Republican convention, every night, and I heard the speeches, and then Trump said he tore up his original speech, which was his normal kind of right-at-you type. And came back with a unity speech, and he wasn’t going to use Joe Biden’s name, he wasn’t going to call him names anymore. And then my respect for him went way up,” said Ronnie B., the North Carolina voter voting for Trump.
“What he said lasted about three days and now he’s back to his old self. … It appears he’s going back to the way he was,” Ronnie continued.
Dale J., the Minnesotan voting for Trump, agreed.
“He was a little more vulnerable and he had a more human side to him,” he said, before adding, “I think he’s probably changed, but he’s changing back.”
“While the assassination attempt against Trump, and his own suggestions he was a changed man, made him more empathetic to some of these voters, he mostly erased their goodwill or hopes with his own 93-minute convention speech,” Talev added.
