Early voting for Georgia’s partisan primaries and judicial elections has begun. The polls that ask “If the election were held today” now matter, as the election is being held most days in person and each day by mail between now and May 19^th.  

Many of the polls we’ve seen thus far show “undecided” is either winning or showing a strong placement in the top contests.  Tens of millions have already been spent, and a lot of voters thus far are just shrugging.

Consultants will tell those who asked these may be “low propensity voters” who may not even show up at the ballot box. They will also suggest they’ll break mostly in line with those who already have formed an opinion.  What they will never say is that these voters haven’t seen a message that engages them where they are, how they live, and that addresses the problems they actually face in their daily lives.

Every credible campaign has a plan, and a message. They then devote their resources to amplifying that message. In primaries, that message is crafted to reach “the base”. Those who consider themselves in that prized voter group know their value, and treat it somewhat like a negotiating position, and somewhat like a hostage situation.  

During each election, “the base” has more and more demands of those who seek their votes. The result is that the hardcore members of each party move the goal posts further and further from the middle. 

“Undecided” shouldn’t be interpreted as “uninformed”, as the hard core partisans usually dismiss them as being. A voter who mistakenly tells an activist that they’re undecided will usually get a bit of a condescending lecture on their candidate’s talking points, as if the undecided voter just arrived here from Mars yesterday. 

There’s almost never a question prior to that such as “what do you know about the candidate or their positions?”.  They give no thought to ask “what concerns do you have about this race that would help you make up your mind?”

The folks who move the goal posts are so invested in the game that they’ve forgotten that the “normies” who eschew cable news and/or social media and just want to live their lives might have unaddressed concerns of their own.  In addition they may actually be turned off by much of the red meat rhetoric being served by the campaigns and their surrogates. 

Undecide voters are often looking for something to vote FOR.  This is complicated by today’s default position of negative campaigning. One need to look no further than the Republican side of the Governor’s race, where the top two contenders have spent tens of millions to tell us what a horrible person the other is.  

Candidates need to be reminded that the public already has a low opinion of the political profession before the mudslinging even starts. A constant negative drumbeat that “the other guy is bad” just drags down the image for all, rather than elevating the accuser above the fray.

Then there’s the “I’m going to change the way Washington (or Atlanta) works pitch. The Governor, as head of an executive branch, can actually do that.  Washington, however, is filled with Senators and Congressmen who promised to go up there and fix things. Literally no one who thinks this promise through believes someone with 1 of 100 votes or 1 of 435 votes is going to change the way Washington works as a freshman member. By the time they have enough seniority to do that, they’ll more likely be part of the system than a conduit to changing it.

The “undecideds” have seen and heard all of this before. Meanwhile, the issues of the campaigns have become more focused on partisan fever dreams and their promises have become hyperbolic if not farcical. The premise that an undecided voter isn’t paying attention needs to be turned on its head. 

Many of my professional, working adjacent to politics friends are undecided on several of the major races.  They’re not undecided because they aren’t paying attention. They’re undecided because they are, and do not like what they see.

Many members of “the base” of each party will vote early.  The race between now and May 19^th is to convince and convert undecided voters. I suggest candidates and campaigns start listening to the citizens who aren’t yet in their camps, rather than pretending another few million spent on what they’re already doing will convince them.