Wall Street Journal: “As the U.S. has grown increasingly polarized, is there even such a thing as a ‘swing voter’ any longer? Yes, although they are a rarer breed than they used to be. From 1948 to 1992, an average of nearly 18% of voters reported casting a ballot for different parties in successive races, according to postelection surveys conducted by the American National Election Studies. Since then, the average has fallen below 10%.”
“That makes for a fairly small pool of persuadable voters and explains why both parties have focused on driving turnout among their bases in recent campaigns. But current polls indicate Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has an opportunity to convert some key voting blocs that supported the Republican Mr. Trump in 2016. A new WSJ/NBC News poll of registered voters found 10% saying they currently support the candidate of the party whose presidential nominee they opposed in 2016—a cohort that consists overwhelmingly of Trump voters who say they now back Mr. Biden. That 10% might seem small, but in a close contest, persuading even just a sliver of voters in key swing groups could make the difference in November. (In the three states that proved decisive in 2016—Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—Mr. Trump won by a combined 77,744, just over one-half of 1% of the trio’s aggregate vote total.)”