If politics had the equivalent of archaeologists, they would marvel at the discovery of discarded polling relics and non-4K-television clips of political figures addressing a forgotten tribe of people: swing voters.
A plague of political partisanship swept through the country sometime in the early 21st century.
In this divided nation, those who became infected could no longer see the people who hadn’t permanently chosen a side.
Over time, the political establishment refused to even speak the dialect of the swing voter.
But the swing-voter tribe isn’t extinct. We’re just consistently ignored.
Impact Social, a social-media monitoring company, has released an analysis of 40,000 real swing voters’ thoughts in the days after President Joe Biden announced his re-election run.
“Biden has enjoyed a healthy lead among our 40K strong panel of independents when set against Donald Trump,” the firm found.
“Trump has failed to win round swing voters, support [from] whom has dropped further and further since the 2020 election resulting in a poor return at the recent midterms.”
There’s a big “But” here for Biden, though.
“However, this — as we have consistently argued — is not due to the policies or charisma of Joe Biden, but a loathing among the majority of swing voters of Trump — a situation exacerbated by Jan 6 and the investigations in his name.”
Indeed, the more these voters see Biden, it seems, the less they like: “In the four days since his campaign launch, Biden’s net sentiment dropped 8pts to -20, his lowest level for nearly a year. In short, the reality of the president officially seeking a second term has hit home” amid “apparent physical frailty and mental lapses.”
Democratic strategists, the firm says, “likely conclude Trump/MAGA hasn’t changed, so why alter the strategy? Except there is one major difference this time. This is the presidential election and Joe Biden is the incumbent. What if the public want neither choice and stay home?”
We used to be commonly understood as an important voting bloc, but both political parties cling to base politics that are increasingly unappealing for a swing voter like me.
Joe Biden and many of the established Democratic figures have abandoned much of what the working- and middle-class moderate American wants in favor of useless political symbolism that arouses elitist progressives.
Biden quite literally skipped going to working-class East Palestine, Ohio, after the catastrophic train derailment to check in on his investment in Ukraine, symbolizing everything wrong with his administration’s priorities.
With the increasing chaotic mismanagement and human suffering at the southern border, “Status Quo Joe” has no real solution for it, yet we’re supposed to sign up for another four years of this?
While I’m fatigued with the inept Biden administration, I’m also bewildered at what Trump is offering the American people in his re-election bid.
The Trump strategy appears to be for us to vote for nostalgia, but this only works on people who are already hardened supporters of his.
The 2016 Trump was a novel disrupter of the political establishment, and swing voters were willing to accept his political inexperience in exchange for his business acumen.
But after several years of being a political mainstay, Trump has only marginally progressed in his strategy, optics and rhetoric.
Swing voters want to know why Trump is selling NFT cards in the middle of a presidential run, especially when none of that money is going to fund his campaign — the optics just don’t look good.
We want to know what’s new that he has to offer us besides advocating the death penalty for drug dealers, which is an incredibly radical position to hold.
It appears Trump is too insulated to see the swing-voter bloc’s declining support — and many in the Republican Party are too afraid to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
As Impact Social has stated, Trump is failing to convince independents to go to the voting booth for him for a third time.
What pols and pundits from both parties don’t comprehend is the prospect of people simply checking out of an election.
Swing voters are not only willing to vote for either party — we are also willing to defiantly withdraw from voting entirely, which could make the difference in an election in key swing states.
If you continue to ignore us, then we swing voters will ignore you back and stay home.
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on Substack: adambcoleman.substack.com.