Here's What's Going On In The Mind Of The Still-Undecided Voter

Americans who haven’t decided who they’ll support in this year’s presidential election may make up a small fraction of the voting public.

A NPR/PBS News/Marist poll in August found that just2% of voters nationally were undecided. A survey last month conducted by researchers at Franklin & Marshall College looking at the swing state of Pennsylvania showed that only 3% of voters there were undecided.

In a race this close, even a few percentage points could make a difference, just as they did in 2016 and 2020.

But as Nov. 4 fast approaches, committed voters might wonder: How could anyone still be undecided?

To get to the bottom of that question, we asked social psychologists and experts on voting behavior and decision-making to speculate on what might be going on in the mind of the still-indecisive voter. Here’s what they had to say.

They may be leaning one way without realizing (or without telling the pollster).

Pollsters take a straightforward approach to measuring human behavior: to find out what someone will do, ask them.

But people don’t always know what they are going to do ahead of time or realize they’re leaning one way or another, said Sam Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University.

“For instance, I don’t know what I’ll have for lunch next Tuesday, but if someone observed my habits over a period of weeks, they might be able to make a pretty good guess as to [which] I will end up choosing when presented with a sandwich or sushi,” he said.

In other words, even if someone believes themself to be undecided, they may be committed to a decision before they become aware of it explicitly, Wang said.

“This is why pollsters ask how people are leaning, but that is still counting on people’s ability to