To undecided voters, Harris is famous, but unknown. They want to learn more

Teri York-Singleton is certain about one thing as she considers the November election: She will not vote for Donald Trump.

York-Singleton, who runs a nonprofit outside Detroit, grew up in a Democratic household but considers herself more of a political independent. And while she finds Vice President Kamala Harris’ sudden entry in the presidential race refreshing, Harris has not closed the sale for her.

“I need more information from her,” said York-Singleton, 68. She listed the costs of medication and child care as well as homelessness as problems she wants to hear Harris discuss. “People are working two to four jobs just to afford rent,” she added.

There is no doubt that Harris has lit a fire inside the Democratic Party. She is drawing tens of thousands of fans to her rallies and raising hundreds of millions of dollars. A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center found that Harris has erased the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans: 62% of Harris voters now say they strongly support her, compared with 43 of Biden voters who expressed strong support for him in July. Among former President Donald Trump’s supporters, 64% characterized their backing for him as strong.

But even to many voters who lean toward the Democratic ticket, the vice president remains largely undefined. And they are not as enamored with her as those flocking to see her speak.

“She’s famous, but she’s unknown,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic strategist and pollster.

Harris will have an opportunity to introduce herself to the many Americans at the Democratic National Convention, which starts Monday. She began the process of telling voters about her plans to address the country’s most pressing problems in earnest Friday in her first major policy address since becoming the Democratic nominee last month. In the speech, she vowed to focus on improving the economic security of the middle class by lowering the cost of living and removing barriers to building generational wealth.

Still, in dozens of interviews from states including the battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, many voters said that they needed to hear more — to fill in the considerable gaps in their understanding of how she would lead. Among the issues they mentioned were inflation, immigration and school vouchers.

Many insisted they would never vote for Trump but said they needed more reasons to vote for Harris.

Anat Shenker-Osorio, another Democratic strategist, said that she found the uncertainty expressed by York-Singleton to be a dominant sentiment among people in focus groups she has conducted recently. That includes statements such as, “I’m waiting to hear more from her. I’m eager to know more about her. I don’t know that much about her.”

Most people, she said, are not following the election very closely.

“We live in a bubble in which we assume that paying attention to the election is what people do,” Shenker-Osorio said. “People have lives.”

Tim Heinle, 42, a cabinetmaker in Milwaukee, is one of those people with other concerns on his mind. He said he sat out the last two presidential elections but is leaning toward voting for Harris now.

He admitted to not knowing much about her.

“I think she was a senator before, and I couldn’t tell you what state,” Heinle said about Harris. Still, the vague impression he has is largely positive, as he thinks she would be pro-union.

“I feel like she would listen to someone before jumping to conclusions and hear the story, whereas Mr. Trump already has his mind made up on a lot of stuff,” he said.

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Many voters are sensing the lighter spirit Harris has brought to American politics and the new energy she infused into the Democratic ticket.

“Hell, she’s much more jovial than Trump,” said Benjamin Donlow III, a 32-year-old actor and stuntman from Poland, Ohio, who is leaning toward Harris. “That would be enough in itself right there.”

But voters are also eager to see how Harris will hold up once the euphoria dies down.

Remarcus Steele, 29, a social media influencer from the Atlanta metropolitan area, said “there’s so much hoopla” about Harris’ ascension, “that we just completely forgot there’s a thing called policies.”

He wants to get a clearer understanding of Harris’ positions on a litany of issues, including food safety, jobs and wages, and immigration.

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Polls show that while Harris has made up lost ground in swing states, many voters also said they are worried by what little they have heard. A New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina found that more registered voters view her as too liberal (43%) than those who say Trump is too conservative (33%).

Shavanaka Kelly, 45, from Milwaukee, said neither Republicans nor Democrats have really explained themselves with enough detail. “I just don’t think either party has actually done a good job with explaining that,” she said. “I’m just doing research and trying to make sure I make an informed decision and not just follow, you know, the status quo.”

She said she has voted more for Democrats in recent elections and believes strongly in a woman’s right to have an abortion. But she sends her children to a Lutheran school using vouchers through a local program that is available to lower-income families. Many Democrats oppose such programs because they can take funding away from public schools.

Bob and Sharon Reed, both 77 and retired teachers, will be watching the convention on their farm in central Pennsylvania. They know what they want to hear from Harris this week, but they are skeptical that they will hear it.

Sharon Reed, who voted for Trump in 2020 but is undecided now, said she wants to Harris to address issues like immigration and inflation in detail. “I really want her to be specific about what she’s going to do when she gets to be president.”

Bob Reed agreed, saying that specifics are particularly important given how variable her stances have been.

“Seems like she’s flip-flopping around a little bit. So we’re not quite sure where she’s exactly at,” he said.

Part of the issue for the Reeds is that neither are quite convinced that she’s ready for the job.

“I want to see the person that can stand up to Putin, to North Korea, that can also pull our allies together,” Sharon Reed said, referring to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Monica Nordman likes the idea of voting for Harris — or anyone who isn’t Trump. “I would vote for a three-legged monkey over Trump,” she said.

But she understands that others might need a little more convincing.

Nordman, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mother from Donora, Pennsylvania, just southwest of Pittsburgh, said that a lot of what she has heard about Harris has been misinformation — such as that Democrats will confiscate guns or push children to change genders.

“If she could dispel those myths, I think more people would be more willing to vote for her,” Nordman said.

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Harris is getting a considerable benefit of the doubt from voters who were previously unhappy with their choices.

Sheila Miani, 70, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, said that faced with the choice of picking between President Joe Biden and Trump, “I might have cheated this year and not voted at all, which would have been horrible.”

She said she likes Harris even though the vice president “really hasn’t had that much of a chance to show who she really is.”

“She’s an unknown,” Miani added.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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