Leave It to My Teenage Daughter To Figure Out Why I Hate This Election

on Oct 8, 2024

SAN DIEGO -- My 15-year-old daughter is smarter than her old man. Everyone in the family knows this. So it came as no surprise that, recently, as she tried to pin me down, she wound up figuring me out.

She zeroed in on what I was thinking, and feeling, about this presidential election -- and the mediocre choices on the ballot -- and pointed out something I couldn't see.

Every week, my little girl corners me and poses a simple question.

"Dad, who are you going to vote for?" she asks.

Sometimes, I try to duck the question, or change the subject. But when I answer it, the response is always the same.

"I'm undecided," I tell her.

Yes, I'm one of those people.

With less than a month until the Nov. 5 election, the hour is late. And both camps of partisans -- Republicans and Democrats -- are detectably angry and frustrated with the sliver of the electorate that hasn't made up its mind between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

As for how wide that sliver actually is, it's hard to tell. Nationwide estimates of how many fence sitters are out there are all over the map.

A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll put the undecided figure at just 1%. But a recent New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll found that the undecided account for nearly 1 in 6 voters, or about 15%. Some polls show up to 20% of voters are undecided, while others put the figure at 3%.

My gut tells me that the actual figure of undecided voters is probably somewhere between 5% and 10%, or more than enough to swing an election that is pretty much tied. Most polls show Harris leading Trump nationwide by two or three points. Among seven battleground states -- Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina -- Harris leads in four of them.

Still, it should worry Team Harris that many of the undecided appear to be drawn from three groups that many Democrats might assume were in their back pocket: those who are Black, Latino or young.

Spare me the insults. Contrary to what you hear from snobby media analysts who have lost touch with real people in the real world, these are not "low-information voters" we're talking about.

It's not that the undecided need to see and hear more from Harris and Trump. Rather, it's that they've already seen and heard too much. And the more they take in, the more unsure they become.

The undecided harbor serious doubts about both candidates.

Every time Trump says something outrageous on the stump -- as he did recently when he suggested that some migrants are genetically predisposed to commit crimes -- the undecided wince.

Every time Harris gives an interview where she comes across as evasive and inarticulate -- as she did during a recent sit-down with CBS News' Bill Whitaker for "60 Minutes" -- they wince again.

Recently, the Times/Inquirer/Siena poll took a hard look at the undecided and essentially asked: "What's the problem?"

The problem is our choices. Concerning Trump, the undecided object to his personality/behavior and question his ethics/honesty. With Harris, they doubt her honesty/trustworthiness and question her judgment/character.

I would frame it differently. It seems to me this is a contest between the morally deficient and the intellectually deficient. Both candidates come up short in important areas.

Here's another worry for Democrats. Among Black and Latino voters, Harris continues to have trouble closing the deal with men. Even those who would never in a million years vote for Trump.

Hey, that's me!

Which brings us back to my daughter and the interrogation to which she is subjecting me.

The teenager knows that I have about as much respect for Trump as the former president showed toward my grandfather and other Mexican immigrants when he described them, in June 2015, as criminals, rapists and drug traffickers. Which is to say, none at all.

"You're not going to vote for Trump," she said. I shook my head.

"So basically, you're just trying to get comfortable with the idea of voting for Harris," she said.

Smart girl. She's correct. I didn't get it. Now I do.

I'm trying to convince myself to support the Democrat if for no other reason than because I loathe the Republican. But it's not working. When I argue in my own mind the case for rolling the dice and putting Harris in the White House, I don't find myself very convincing.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.