Late Deciders, Crossover Voters, Latino Voters: 5 Factors to Watch for on Election Night

The 2024 election cycle has produced some amazing and sometimes counterintuitive narratives about how demographic subgroups might end up voting. We can just see a historical gap in the way men and women vote – or not. Polls suggest we’re in the midst of the biggest racial adjustment since the Civil Rights Act was passed—otherwise it could be a mirage. Young people can sit out elections because they are disillusioned and vote for a third party – or they can turn out in record numbers for Kamala Harris. The more diverse Sun Belt states may pave the way for a Donald Trump victory — but the predominantly older and whiter “Blue Wall” states may elect the first black woman president.

We’ll know soon enough. Although election day is only days away, at least 60 million people have already voted. Battleground states are hitting or surpassing their records for early voting. And with polls of likely voters still showing an even race, any combination of factors, events or movements within the electorate could sway the outcome.

To that end, I’ve collected a handful of questions that we at Vox have tracked over the past year. Their final answer could determine who wins the White House.

Will there be late decisions? And what can change their minds?

The story of the final weeks of the 2024 election has been a battle for undecided voters, a declining number in poll after poll. This proportion includes two groups: voters who are undecided between either candidate and voters who may have a preference but are undecided about voting at all.

However, we don’t really know who these late decision makers are. Could they be the same kind of working-class and non-college-educated (primarily white) voters who boosted Trump to victory in the Rust Belt states in 2016 (and thus skewed the polls)? Or will they be dozens of new and young (primarily non-white) voters who could give Harris an edge in the Sun Belt states?

And for all these subgroups – what kind of message or campaign development can get them to vote who haven’t already persuaded them? Could Harris’ late-game revival of democracy and Trump’s authoritarian bent resonate with them? Is something like the racist and extreme rhetoric at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden a factor that could shape their opinion? Or is something like President Joe Biden’s “garbage” this week something that could bring more Trump support?

Either way, these late decision makers will be crucial. They have crushed for Trump by massive margins in each of the last two elections he has been a part of. But things may be different this third time.

Will there be Republican crossover for Harris?

Along these lines, Harris’ appeal to the fate of democracy and juxtaposition of her “to-do” list against Trump’s “enemies” list are the clearest examples of how the Democrat’s campaign has focused on Trump-skeptic Republicans as an important part of prevention. a Trump victory. But will these registered Republicans cross party lines or simply repeat them as reluctant Trump voters?

Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t vote for Trumpand even after she dropped out, large portions of those voters chose to vote for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Many of them are women, which explains part of the focus Harris has made a point of calling out Republican supporters as is former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, her father and former Vice President Dick Cheney, and dozens of others former Never-Trump Republican politicians.

However, partisanship is a hell of a drug. Republicans, even if they personally dislike Trump, routinely stick with their party’s nominee. Harris keeps asking these Trump-wary Republicans to put “country over party.” But if they don’t, and Harris’s argument about Trump’s threat to democracy is right, they may have to throw a “country over” party.

Will Arab American voters slide toward Republicans?

The Gaza war, and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, has been one of the decisive issues in the last year, also in the electoral field. Biden’s handling and response fueled a significant amount of discontent from more progressive and left-leaning members of the Democratic coalition, and that antipathy appears to have stuck with Harris to a lesser extent. That includes a voting bloc that is influential in a crucial swing state: Arab American voters in Michigan.

Polls specifically of Arab Americans suggest those voters won’t turn out for Harris to the same degree they’ve boosted Democratic candidates in the past: An Arab News-YouGov poll found this week Trump leads Harris among Arab Americans 45 to 43. It is a drastic change from 2020, when Biden led Trump along 24 pointsand especially 2016, when Hillary Clinton led Trump by 34 points.

But this was not always the case. Before 9/11, Arab American voters leaning Republicans. Only after the GOPs anti-Muslim and anti-Arab during the George W. Bush years, this voting segment swung toward the Democrats, reaching a peak in 2004. And since that peak, those voters have trended toward the GOP, with the share supporting John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Trump growing from 2008 to 2012 and into 2020 (support fell slightly in 2016). The Gaza war may accelerate a latent shift to the right that was already occurring as the GOP shifted its foreign policy priorities, championed conservative culture war issues and ramped up economic populism as Democrats became more culturally progressive, including on issues of gender and sexuality.

Will Trump’s Bet on Younger Black Men Pay Off?

For most of the past year, the Trump campaign has played up its targeted outreach to a specific segment of the electorate: Black men. With an avalanche of digital advertising directed on younger black menand deploying surrogates and outside groups to reach young black voters, the campaign has hoped to exploit two dynamics: Harris’ apparent weakness with black men and an overall vulnerability Democrats have with younger black Americans.

Traditional polling suggests that Harris has faced a challenge in reaching the same margin of support that previous Democratic candidates have enjoyed among black voters, and specifically black men. Both social and economic reasons explain this, including fhv President Barack Obama’s theory that a degree of misogyny prevents some black men from supporting a black woman.

But there’s also a larger Democratic weakness, based on surveys that show younger black voters specifically may have weaker ties to the party than older cohorts of black voters, and may be more conservative than their elders. And young black men appear more likely this year to support Trump, perhaps as a product of that weaker bond.

But this is also among the cohort of voters least likely to vote, and who some polls suggestconsolidating for Harris as they gear up for the election. And with more outright racist remarks and bigoted speech being issued by Trump and his supporters in the final weeks of the campaign, it’s not clear that this investment will realize big enough gains on Election Day to swing races in battleground states.

Will Latino Voters Shift Right in the States That Matter?

Whether Latino voters have moved toward the Republican Party since the start of the Trump years is not really up for debate. Trump’s 2020 gains held for Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms, and polls suggest he will at least hold on to much of the support in one week. But because the election is decided by the Electoral College and not the popular vote, the more interesting question is whether these gains will hold or grow in the states that matter.

In 2020, much of the political media was captivated by the massive inroads Trump made in South Florida and South Texas, places that had given Democrats an advantage in Latino support for years. But Trump’s Hispanic gains also happened across the country, in primarily immigrant communities and in both Democratic and Republican strongholds that does not necessarily affect the results of the electoral college map.

This year, it appears that states already likely will solidly back Trump or Harris could see their Latino population continue to shift to the right (as is most evident in Florida), even as Latino voters in swing modes like ArizonaNevada and Pennsylvania, according to polling, are bucking this trend and moving toward Democrats (or at least keeping Democratic margins intact from 2020).

That could result in Trump making major inroads among Latinos nationally, but not enough in swing states to boost him in the presidential primaries that matter. That would provide more evidence of an ongoing racial realignment between parties, but one driven by Hispanic and Latino voters in California, New York and Texas. That has real implications for control of Congress, but unless Latinos who switch party affiliations are in swing states, it won’t affect who wins the White House.