this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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politics

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I’ve decided undecided voters have low critical thinking skills and/or are attention seekers

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[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I don’t understand why anyone cares about the “undecideds”. These people sound like morons who wouldn’t listen to reason anyway.

Stop begging for scraps. These people make up about three percent of potential voters, and I doubt most of them even bother to go to the polls.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-three-percent-voters-still-035900135.html

[–] Poayjay@lemmy.world 28 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Literally every election is decided by the “undecided”. Democrats vote democrat and republicans vote republican. It rare that anyone changes party. What determines elections is if democrats can get people who wouldn’t otherwise vote to vote. Every time people turn out, democrats win. When people are uninterested they lose. Those ~50k people in suburbs of swing states are not unimportant, they are the only thing that matters.

[–] niucllos@lemm.ee 21 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This premise gets thrown around a lot but I actually disagree. "Every time people turn out" is always also thrown in there like some arbitrary thing--when I think the past several election cycles have shown that when there are younger, more progress candidates who make it past the primaries turnout shoots up. Courting the 3% uninformed flip-floppers by moving right is a losing strategy when you could be motivating your own party to turn out by moving left and driving turnout up. There's no money in that though, so dumb centrists get wooed

[–] whereisk@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It’s also a mistruth that people don’t change their minds. Look at the rise and fall of any brand, religion or cult - some people had to change their minds.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Or some people died off, and new suckers fell for new, different marketing.

[–] whereisk@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Advertising wouldn’t work if there was need to wait for generations to pass.

[–] MsPenguinette@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

When/if democrats can Energize the base, they don't need to give a shit about undecideds. but until then, we are stuck pandering to the people we know will actually show up to and wait at the voting booth

[–] Marthirial@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Literally every election is decided by the “undecided

That and voter suppression. If everybody could vote easily, the GOP would never win an election.

[–] triptrapper@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

It's absolutely voter suppression. Every election we have 1/3 of the electorate that doesn't cast a vote. We could court these couple million undecideds or we could fix the system and have automatic registration and even compulsory voting. And then, you're absolutely right, Republicans would never win again.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

No, every election is decided by the majority of those who did decide.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

in a world where the winner is decided by < 5%, 3% is quite a bit.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

The implication is that 100% of that 3% votes one way.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

in a world where the winner is decided by < 5%

It's a false analysis to claim that. Using that same reasoning, you could as credibly claim that any election is decided by a single vote, the one that gives the winner the majority (or plurality). But that's not actionable information in any way, it's just tautologically true, as is any salami-slicing analysis.