some level of persuasion is still necessary to win elections.
When was the last time before this election which persuasion was needed to win elections, the only example in my head was last August, and before that was probably June 2019. There are only like 5 swing voters in the game, and with a game with over 200 voters, their votes don't amount for much.
Edit: Zombie voting also has an impact on reducing the impact persuasion, and unless we have a commission to purge zombies, persuasion will be more useless as time goes on.