Is the "quality" of swing voters decreasing?

[ProgressiveModerate]

When many people think of swing voters, they think about people who genuinely weigh both sides in a given cycle and vote for who they really believe will be the candidate who has their best interests at heart.

However, with the increasingly polarization, I feel like the vast majority of people who actually spend time considering the issues, evaluating their own beliefs, and are generally well engaged politically are bound to come to a staunch conclusion to one side or the other just because of how different the parties are these days, even if they might consider themselves ideologically "moderate" and not identity with either party. As polarization continues increasing, it basically becomes less and less likely for someone who is highly engaged and civically aware to be truly torn between the 2 parties.

Flipping one of these highly educated highly informed voters likely requires the parties to dramatically change or the voter themselves to dramatically change their beliefs, however, since both of these changes are presumably long term, this person isn't a swing voter they've just been re-aligned.

I think increasingly, swing voters are people who are easily impressionable by the issue or culture war of the day. Increasing polarization affects these voters less because they're less politically engaged and are less likely to see as big of a delta between the 2 parties. This tends to be bad for society overall because politics loses that sense of accountability, it's just about who can sell a better message to the most naive/impressionable voters.

*Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say "naive" or "impressionable" shouldn't be allowed to vote or even that their participation is a bad thing. However, polarization causing those people to hold disproportionate power by increasingly being the main block of swing voters is a bad thing*

[Agonized-Statism]

What does a swing voter in 2024 even look like? It's hard to imagine.

[dpmapper]

What does a swing voter in 2024 even look like? It's hard to imagine.

Someone who dislikes woke-ism but also hates the Trump show? 

[Sol]

(own work, via imgflip.com)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What does a swing voter in 2024 even look like? It's hard to imagine.

Biden-Youngkin voters.

[progressive85]

I think there's another effect where by somebody votes for a party that they were leaning to and then after a very short time dislikes the person they voted for.  There appears to be "Weak Republicans" and "Weak Democrats" that are not really swing voters because they always vote for their party in the end, but they aren't crazy about their party or the candidate either.

I think someone that is absolutely going to be happy with either the Democrat or the Republican and likes them or admires them both is very rare these days.

If you're at least 25-30 or so and you've been voting in elections for a while, I think you definitely lean a certain way, even if you don't like everything about the side you're on.

[Del Tachi]

"Highly-informed, highly-educated" voters have always been the most partisan.  "Reagan Democrats" (i.e., the most sought-after and prototypical "swing voters" of the 1980s-2010s) were never considered a particularly erudite, politically-informed bunch. 

In reality, pretty much all voters evaluate candidates based on "vibes."  That is, we assess candidates based on vague likability- or identity-based criteria and then just regurgitate the campaign's or aligned media's talking points in order to rationalize our decision.  Folks who do this with a lot of extra breath (i.e., "high information" voters, Atlas posters, etc.) are not really smarter than anyone else. 

[Pres Mike]

Swing voters do not exist (with exceptions). They haven't exsisted in any large number at the presidential level since 2000.

Truly educated swing voters haven't exsisted in large number in several decades. Probably since 1968.

[Pollster]

"The division in this country right now is not between left and right, it's between engaged and unengaged."

Swing voters are people who don't regularly watch the news, are not on politics and election twitter or the talkelections forums, and are not primed to believe the rhetoric (true or not) that one of the two political parties - both of which they probably don't like - is a danger to society that needs to be stopped. But they still vote, still have beliefs, still see the same ads, and face the same choices as a highly engaged partisan voter.

[Torie]

It does not include anything to do with Trump of course, but I consider myself somewhat of a swing voter, so the answer is obviously yes. 

[It’s so Joever]

"Highly-informed, highly-educated" voters have always been the most partisan.  "Reagan Democrats" (i.e., the most sought-after and prototypical "swing voters" of the 1980s-2010s) were never considered a particularly erudite, politically-informed bunch. 

In reality, pretty much all voters evaluate candidates based on "vibes."  That is, we assess candidates based on vague likability- or identity-based criteria and then just regurgitate the campaign's or aligned media's talking points in order to rationalize our decision.  Folks who do this with a lot of extra breath (i.e., "high information" voters, Atlas posters, etc.) are not really smarter than anyone else. 

The second part of your post answers like half the questions on Atlas tbh.