The voters that could swing this year's election

In the lead up to Election Day tomorrow, both presidential campaigns have been scrambling to reach the large bloc of undecided US voters, in what’s shaping up to be a tight race.

But these probably aren’t the “undecideds” you’re thinking of.

Rather than voters who are unsure which candidate to support, this election hinges on the significant portion of Americans who are undecided on whether to cast a vote at all, according to several analysts who cite recent polling data.

• An estimated 25+% of the US voting population sometimes casts ballots, and other times opts to skip elections.
• The Trump and Harris campaigns are working hard to get these voters to the polls, as their turnout is seen as more important than appealing to the ~3% of registered US voters who say they’re undecided on which candidate to support.

These infrequent voters will likely decide the election

“Super voters,” a group defined as showing up for every presidential and midterm election since 2016, have favored Harris over Trump by a margin of at least 4% in every Wall Street Journal survey this year.

But that group only represents 49% of the US electorate, meaning the race will likely come down to whether Trump can make up those 4+ points from the other half of the voter pool – which views him more favorably.

• Among US voters who only cast ballots in presidential years, Trump holds a 14 point lead over Harris.
• Trump also leads by 10 points among US voters who were old enough to cast a ballot in the last two presidential elections, but skipped at least one.
• However – Harris holds a 21-point advantage among voters under 26, a group that typically has low voter turnout and was too young to vote in one or both of 2016 and 2020.

Big picture: Available data indicates the campaigns’ efforts to target low-frequency voters is working. A recent campaign by MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting Donald Trump, targeted ~4 million GOP-leaning voters who had skipped the past three elections – and, as of last Thursday, nearly 20% of that group had already voted in 2024.

📊 Flash poll: To all our readers who are voting age: to which category do you belong?

• Super voter (2016, 2018, 2020, & 2022)
• Only presidential-year voter (2016 & 2020)
• Occasional presidential-year voter (either 2016 or 2020)
• Under 26 years old
• I haven’t voted in recent presidential elections