| So what will be the tipping point? A strong possibility: change. “The candidate who wins is the candidate who represents change the most,” Sarah Longwell, who created Republican Voters Against Trump and regularly conducts focus groups with voters, told me recently. That’s because after several years of Americans feeling pessimistic about the economy, the state of democracy, global events, extreme weather worsened by climate change — not to mention a pandemic — voters want to leave all that behind. Trump has a pretty easy case to make that he’d shake things up. His first term attempted to disrupt the status quo, and his new ideas — like mass deportations, tariffs on nearly all imports and raising the possibility of punishing or prosecuting his political enemies — are even more disruptive. (Although economists and governance experts warn Trump’s plans wouldn’t necessarily bring about change for the better.) So this election may come down to whether Harris can pitch herself as enough of a change to convince on-the-fence voters to cast ballots for her. She’s pitching herself as a new generation of leadership, but it’s tough when she is the current No. 2 in an unpopular administration. And this new Washington Post poll of voters in seven battleground states also suggests she has an uphill battle on pitching herself as a change candidate. Like: More voters say Trump will change things for the better than Harris: Sixty-five percent of these swing-state voters think Trump will make “fundamental changes to the country,” while 47 percent say the same of Harris. And more voters say Trump’s changes will be for the better than say that about Harris — though there’s also a lot of voter skepticism that Trump’s changes would make America worse off. Which candidate is more likely to bring about change? | Swing state voters say Trump will bring more change, for the better | | Trump | Harris | | Will bring about fundamental change | | 65% | | | Will bring change for the better | | 40% | | | Will bring change for the worse | | 25% | | | Washington Post-Schar School survey, October 2024, of voters in seven swing states | | Trump gets better marks for his presidency than she does for her vice presidency: Voters in the seven battleground states are more likely to say they approve of how Trump handled his presidency than how Harris is handling the vice presidency. More voters approve of Trump's presidency than Harris's job so far | Poll of voters in seven swing states | | Approval of Trump's presidency | | 51% | | | Approval of Harris's vice presidency | | 44% | | | Washington Post Schar School October 2024 survey of seven swing states | | That means when Harris is tied to President Joe Biden — like when she recently said “there is not a thing that comes to mind” she’d change from his presidency — she risks turning off some swing voters. (In another interview, on Fox News, she later said “my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency.”) Yet a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that 65 percent of voters say Harris would mainly continue Biden’s policies. The economy is recovering — but do voters agree? Harris has a strong argument to make that the economy has recovered under the Biden administration. But The Post poll finds that a majority of battleground-state voters who say they are leaning toward Harris also say the economy and inflation is getting worse, when in fact things have largely recovered. That underscores Harris has more work to do in these final weeks to convince voters that the economy is doing better. Harris still does have a case to make that she brings change: Her top pitch on that front is simply her age. Trump is 78, which is as old as Biden was when he was inaugurated. “I represent a new generation of leadership,” she asserted on Fox News recently. And she’s been pitching Trump as the one who is stuck in the past. Democrats say she’s helped on that front by the Republican Party’s unpopular position to restrict abortion rights and Project 2025, which would dramatically remake America in a conservative mold on everything from limiting access to reproductive care, to slashing climate change protections and federal agencies, to potentially reinstating the military draft. Even though the Trump campaign says its was not involved in the project, polls show it’s unpopular, and Democrats grab every chance they get to try to tie it to Trump. “We are not going back’ — that’s a good thing to lean on,” Longwell said about Harris’s campaign catchphrase. “People want out of this moment; they want to move past covid. They want past Trump.” | 
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