A deeper look at persuadable voters in Indana and Arizona Senate races
These final moments before Election Day are about two things—mobilization and persuasion.
Candidates across the country are all trying to gin up their base and boost turnout, but they're also trying to make the final sell to those voters who still sit on the fence.
A sizable portion of likely voters in the recent NBC News/Marist University polls of Senate races in Indiana and Arizona consider themselves persuadable. And who is able to bring more of those voters on board could decide those races, which currently sit on a knife's edge.
The latest Indiana Senate poll by NBC/Marist, released Wednesday, finds Indiana Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly leading Republican Mike Braun by just 2 points among likely voters. He's supported by 48 percent to Braun's 46 percent.
But of those likely voters, 14 percent say they're persuadable, either undecided or leaning toward a candidate but open to changing their mind.
Among those voters, President Trump's approval is narrowly above water—42 percent approve of his job performance while 38 percent disapprove of it.
These persuadable voters also have a significantly more negative view of Braun than Donnelly, but neither win high marks. Donnelly's favorable rating of 27 percentage points is just a hair higher than the 25 percent who view him unfavorably.
Just 14 percent of these persuadable voters view Braun favorably, while 35 percent view him unfavorably.
These voters divided evenly on the question of congressional preference, making it clear that these are true swing voters whose decisions could go a long way in deciding who wins on Tuesday.
Arizona has a similarly-sized group of persuadable voters in this week's NBC/Marist poll, which finds Democrat Kyrsten Sinema with a 6-point lead over Republican Rep. Martha McSally, 50 percent to 44 percent, among likely voters.
But while those voters give both candidates poor marks, they are far more down on Trump than the persuadable Indiana voters. That could spell trouble for McSally if these voters act on their feelings about the president.
Just one-quarter of the Arizona persuadable voters, those who are undecided or leaning toward a candidate but open to a change of heart, approve of Trump's job performance. And 49 percent disapprove of Trump.
Sinema's favorable rating sits at just 26 percent, but that's higher than McSally's favorable rating of 16 percent.
Both have similar unfavorable ratings—44 percent of likely voters view Sinema unfavorably while 41 percent view McSally unfavorably.
But the voters lean to the left on the question of congressional preference—these persuadable voters prefer to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate by 3 points.
Like the Indiana pool of persuadable voters, these sub-samples have larger margins of error because the sample is smaller. But with enough volatility in these races, these voters could make the difference on Election Day.