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By Helen Coster and Tim Reid
(Reuters) – Kamala Harris was seen by many as the dominant candidate during Tuesday’s presidential debate against Republican former President Donald Trump, but a group of undecided voters were still not convinced the Democratic vice president was the better candidate.
Reuters interviewed 10 people who were still undecided about how they would vote in the Nov. 5 election before watching the debate. Six said afterward that they would now vote for Trump or were leaning toward supporting him. Three said they would now support Harris, and one still didn’t know how he would vote.
Harris and Trump are locked in a neck-and-neck race, and the election will likely be decided by just tens of thousands of votes in a handful of swing states, many of which have undecided voters, like the undecided voters who spoke to Reuters.
While the sample was small, responses indicated that Harris may need to come up with more detailed policy proposals to persuade undecided voters.
Five of them criticized Harris for being vague during the 90-minute debate over how she would improve the U.S. economy and address the high cost of living, one of voters’ top concerns.
The meeting was particularly significant for Harris, as a New York Times/Siena College poll found that more than a quarter of potential voters feel they don’t know enough about her, unlike the well-known Trump.
Trump converts said they trust him more on economics, even though they all said they don’t like him as a person. They said their personal financial situations were better when he was president between 2017 and 2021. Some pointed to his proposal to tax foreign imports, though economists say that would likely raise prices.
Four of the six also said Harris had failed to convince them she would pursue different economic policies than Democratic President Joe Biden, a Democrat they largely blame for the high cost of living.
“I still don’t know what she’s for,” said Mark Kadish, 61, a Florida entrepreneur. “There was no real meat and bones to her plans.”
Four of the voters are women and six are men; eight are white and two are black. All have voted for both Democratic and Republican candidates in the past.
Harris did touch on some policy details, including her plan to provide tax breaks to families and small businesses. But she focused much of the debate on attacking Trump rather than laying out detailed policies.
Robert Wheeler, 48, a security contractor in Nevada, leaned toward Harris before the debate. He now says that if the election were held tomorrow, he would vote for Trump, largely because he felt Harris was not clear about her policies.
“I felt like the whole debate was about Kamala Harris telling me why I shouldn’t vote for Donald Trump, rather than why she’s the right candidate,” Wheeler said.
But Meredith Marshall, a self-employed entrepreneur who lives in Los Angeles, said she now supports Harris. She said she had hoped to hear more about the economy from the vice president, but still liked her plan to help small businesses.
(Reporting by Tim Reid and Helen Coster, Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
