In election cycles, political operatives are always prepared to expect the unexpected, and we all know to hold our breath for the infamous October surprise. 

But this year’s shocker came early: The election flipped upside down and inside out when President Joe Biden courageously decided to step down and make way for the next generation of leaders, passing the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Politicos and pollsters jumped in to make meaning of the moment and interpret the viral memes, TikToks, and Zoom calls that hosted tens of thousands of voters ready to campaign for Harris — not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars that poured into her coffers. 

“Kamala brat summer” took off on social media — but what are voters actually thinking?

Community Change Voters had an edge on voter attitudes, as we were able to capture a snippet of the electorate’s mood through our persuasion phones program that reached 208,814 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from July 20th through the 28th. We were able to capture in real-time how voters were feeling about Biden and then Harris after his announcement. 

What we learned grounded us as we plot the work ahead. 

First, about 20 percent of voters we talked to were undecided, which underscores the importance of targeted and persuasive campaign strategies. 

Support for Trump among our sampled population remains relatively stable, hovering around 16 percent, with a significant portion coming from Latinos — and Trump support amongst Latinos jumps to 22 percent in Pennsylvania. Interestingly, low propensity, or infrequent, Latino voters are less likely to support Trump. 

Black voters, Boomers and those over 80 years old are strong Biden supporters, but Black voters in Pennsylvania are slightly skeptical. 

Our phone program unveiled an increase not so much towards Trump, but rather in voters expressing indecision or disinterest in either Democratic or Republican candidates. This shift underscores the growing challenge of voter apathy — a trend that might be reversed with the momentum building for the new Harris-Walz ticket. 

When the persuasion phone calls switched over to measure support for Kamala Harris, we quickly realized that we had some ground to cover with voters in swing states. 

Support for Kamala Harris had a significant drop off in our second round of calls — not because people prefer Trump, but because voters are unfamiliar with her or don’t know her record. There’s an opportunity to talk to voters about Kamala Harris (and now Tim Walz), to go back to basic voter education that lifts up accomplishments, voting records and stances on key issues like the economy, jobs and safety. We have to meet the voter where they’re at with messages that resonate with their real lives. 

The data further revealed a 7-point gap in Harris’s support between the most likely (61%) and least likely (54%) voters, with education level appearing to play a larger role than income in these differences. This reiterates a long-standing belief that education is the most consistent predictor for vote choice. 

While Latino voters and Gen-Z voters emerged as our most challenging groups regarding support for Harris, their support for Harris is trending in the right direction. 

Lastly, surge voters, or those who hadn’t voted prior to 2018, continue to be the weakest link in voter support and a challenge when thinking through mobilization strategies. It could be that they are unfamiliar with pre-Trump politics, or their introduction to voting happened in the midst of a global pandemic after four years of Trump chaos. 

Persuasion calls like these are a valuable tool to every campaign as they provide a snapshot of the electorate’s mood and measure candidate ID, or, the name recognition of the candidate by voters. It’s a tactic we are replicating on the doors in our key states and will continue making calls over the coming weeks to reach our goal of 50,000 candidate IDs in each state. Our conversations with voters in the first week of Harris’ presidential campaign pushed us to adjust our voter engagement strategy and elevate the ways Vice President Harris has stepped up to champion the communities we organize.

This deep listening and organizing work is what will get voters to the polls long after the shock of the Democratic ticket changes and social media trends die down. 

Grecia Lima is the Executive Director of Community Change Voters.