Opinion | Kamala Harris and Donald Trump: 15 Swing State Voters Discuss

Who will win the presidential race? For our final Times Opinion focus group of the 2024 election, we spoke with late-deciding voters — Americans who were seesawing between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump recently and making up their minds at the last minute. With Harris and Trump supporters so energized and polls showing a very tight race, we wanted to explore the events, issues and vibes that might sway these voters one way or another.

All of our 15 late deciders were from swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, and many of them voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and for Joe Biden in 2020. No surprise, most of them had concerns and hang-ups about both of the candidates, but it quickly became clear that Mr. Trump, in particular, was doing himself no favors with these voters.

While some of them recoiled over his Madison Square Garden rally, his bigger problem was coming across as the same old, same old to these voters, with no new or clear solutions to their problems and his familiar grievances about the 2020 election.

As for Ms. Harris, most of these voters thought she would be “more of the same” as president, rather than a leader who pursues changes, and saw her as less authentic than Mr. Trump.. Many of them compared her less favorably with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But in the end, years of misgivings and doubts about Mr. Trump outweighed the uncertainty about Ms. Harris with several participants, and more of them saw her winning than Mr. Trump.