Pennsylvania’s undecided voters are smaller in 2024 than in previous years, poll shows

Chloe “Cherry” Lang, a 20-year-old retail worker from Norristown, voted for the first time in 2022, inspired to support Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro because abortion bans were threatening reproductive rights in states across the country.

Now Lang, who works two jobs at T-Mobile and Spencer’s, trying to save money while living with her parents, doesn’t know what to do in November. Disillusioned with both major parties, she’s not sure she’ll vote at all.

“I’m trying to get my life together, but both presidential candidates don’t seem to be working for us, they seem to be working for themselves,” Lang said. “My generation, we can’t afford anything, and I don’t think either candidate is going to make that change.”

Lang is one of about 3% of registered voters in Pennsylvania who are undecided about the outcome of the 2024 presidential election — a petite but significant number in a state that could decide the president and where previous elections have swung by tens of thousands of votes.

Undecided voters are often challenging to study—they tend to be less engaged or frustrated with both parties, making them less likely to respond to polls. And with just over two months before the election, many of them just aren’t paying attention yet. But those who do make up their minds in the final two weeks before Election Day could determine the winner in close states.

Here’s what we know about undecided voters in this critical state.

How many undecided voters are there?

A recent Franklin & Marshall poll of registered voters in Pennsylvania examined in mid-August, it was found that about 3% were undecided and 8% were supporting someone else in the race. Emerson College Likely Voter Poll As of the end of this month, it said about 2% of respondents intended to vote but had not yet chosen a candidate. Another 1% had backed someone else in the race.

That is down from August 2020, when about 6% of likely voters in Pennsylvania said they were undecided.

“I think it’s partly because, [former President Donald Trump’s] candidacy. People are pretty aware of Trump and to some extent they either vote for him or against him,” said Emerson College pollster Spencer Kimball.

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But the unconvinced group is still vast enough to tip the scales in Pennsylvania, where Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been at odds in recent polls and the state he won by just more than 1 percentage point in 2020 and by slightly less in 2016.

When you include voters who previously said they supported an independent or nonpartisan candidate, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is no longer on the ballot in Pennsylvania, the number of undecided voters, or those who support a third option, rises to about 10% in the F&M poll.

Independent voters are a group to watch because they often change their minds, said F&M pollster Berwood Yost. “It’s pretty normal for candidates who run as independents to tend to do better in the polls than they actually do on Election Day,” Yost said.

It is unclear what impact, if any, Kennedy’s withdrawal and Trump’s endorsement will have, but if Kennedy’s supporters follow his advice, could give Trump an advantage in Pennsylvania.

Who are Pennsylvania’s undecided voters?

Dividing the sample of undecided voters further is an imperfect science, because in a survey of about 1,000 people, that group becomes a sample of about 30. But overall, undecided voters in Pennsylvania are more likely to register as unaffiliated.

About three-quarters of them were independents in the Emerson College Pennsylvania poll. The rest split between the two major parties. In the Emerson poll, undecided voters were slightly more likely to support Trump in 2020 and tended to be younger than the state’s average overall population.

“These are the ones who just started voting in the last few cycles and are now wondering what happened,” Kimball said.

In the F&M undecided voter sample, the majority (60%) were independent voters, with more women than men among them.

Zooming out to look at Emerson’s poll across all seven swing states (a total sample of 107 people), undecided Pennsylvanians are slightly older and whiter than in other states. In all seven states, black voters are more likely to be undecided (23%) than their share of the electorate, while Hispanic voters (11%) and white voters (58%) are less likely. Only 10% of voters 60 and older were undecided, while undecidedness was higher among younger voters under 60.

How will they crash?

The population of undecided voters in key swing states including Pennsylvania has changed somewhat since Biden was the Democratic nominee, and includes a larger younger demographic that looks a bit more like the electorate Trump will seek to win back.

“Previously, Democrats were targeting that group because they had a lot more voters sitting on the sidelines,” Kimball said. “But they were able to win them back with Harris. Now it looks like Trump has a little bit more undecided voters, and we’ll see if he can win them back.”

Again, the sample size is petite, but of the 107 undecided voters across all seven swing states, 52% leaned toward Trump, while 46% leaned toward Harris when forced to choose. Another 2% chose neither candidate.

In 2020, according to Emerson polls, 43% of voters voted for Trump, 37% for Biden, 11% for another party and 9% did not vote.

F&M’s Yost noted in his poll that 10% of voters said they could still change their minds — another variable that could make a difference.

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In the coming weeks, both candidates can be expected to focus on winning support from their voters while promoting the often hard-to-locate middle ground.

“If you look at Harris’ strategy, it seems like she’s trying to do both,” Yost said. “I think Trump sometimes wants to do both, and then he kind of strays away from it.”

Mary Biser, a 74-year-old registered nurse from York, had been leaning toward voting for RFK Jr. until he withdrew. A two-time Trump voter, Biser wasn’t sure she could stomach a third vote for Trump, whose policies she largely agreed with but whose authoritarian tendencies she found troubling.

“It is difficult to say who did what and how much they were involved in the events of January 6, but it is scary to think about such policies and attempts to overthrow the government,” she said.

But Biser believes Democrats are “exhibiting socialist and communist behavior,” which is what she fears more. She said she spoke with similarly conflicted members of her church last week and decided she would probably push the button for Trump.

“It’s a vote for a platform, not a candidate,” she said. “I don’t like him, but I dislike Democrats more, and I don’t think Harris has the brains or the experience.”

Meanwhile, Cynthia Wilson, a 69-year-old retired nurse from Harrisburg, is among the undecided voters both campaigns are trying to win over.

She is a registered Republican who votes Democratic in her congressional race and Republican in her state Senate race. She watched Harris’ interview on CNN Thursday, wondering if she might support her, but was disappointed by the lack of specific answers to questions.

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“She’s talking about a new future,” Wilson said. “What have we had for the last 3½ years that you’ve been vice president?”

But Wilson said Trump also failed to provide details, and she herself was horrified by reports of his campaign being filmed and staff being intimidated during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery last week.

“I honestly think these people, her and Trump, really think Americans are stupid. That really offends me.”

If the election were held today, Wilson said she and her husband would put former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s name on the presidential ticket.

“We know this isn’t going to get us anywhere,” Wilson said. “But at least we can say we voted.”