Many undecided voters care deeply about civility. Who are they going to vote for this week?

Whether Haley voters will follow her and Gov. Spencer Cox’s lead in supporting Trump's campaign may help determine who wins tomorrow.

Nikki Haley told Brett Baier on Fox News last week that the last time Trump spoke with her was June. This came as a shock to observers who take for granted a politician will do anything it takes to win. The Associated Press reported, “As Democrats court Haley supporters, the former U.N. ambassador is still waiting to hear from Trump.”

Yet many of these Haley voters have always been gettable for the former president. As Marc A. Thiessen recently wrote in the Washington Post, a Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted Sept. 30 to Oct. 15 showed the 26% of swing-state voters still uncommitted were much more negative about the Biden-Harris administration compared with the broader electorate.

Will undecided voters hesitant about Trump overcome their qualms and punch their ticket for him in 2024?

Winning the ‘civility voter’

It’s conventional wisdom in American politics that voters select a candidate based on whatever issue matters and motivates them most. Are you most concerned about Ukraine’s defense or the demonization of immigrants? Then Vice President Kamala Harris might be getting a second look, even if you voted Republican in the past.

Are you most concerned about protecting unborn children, combatting inflation or perhaps breaking with past pandemic policy? Then former President Donald Trump might still get your vote in November, even if you leaned Democrat in the past.

Most of us vote on our top issues. And for a certain kind of voter, none of the other issues matter more than how we treat and talk with each other as Americans. For this bloc of Americans, few issues matter more than losing our basic ability to live and work together well across our differences.

Hard data on this bloc of voters is hard to come by, but there are real indicators this bloc of voters is out there. Each election, the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service conducts a “Battleground Civility Poll” among 800 registered voters. This year, they found that Republicans and Democrats agree that the “most partisan arm of the other party presents a threat to democracy”— while 88% of respondents (72% strongly) believing that “leaders of different parties finding compromises together can help lower political division.”

For those assuming too quickly that the Harris-Walz ticket has a lock on “civility voters,” look no further than Utah’s Gov. Spencer Cox and former South Carolina Gov. and Ambassador Nikki Haley’s choices for president. Will “civility voters” follow the lead of these two leaders who have emphasized the importance of civility in their own campaigns? Or is Harris doing enough to win them over, while Trump lets them slip away?

Hoping for a changed man

For the 20% of Republicans who had voted for Nikki Haley in the primary contest — and for the many others unsure how they felt about any Democratic nominee — it was music to their ears to hear Trump say at the Republican convention: “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America.”

Some of these voters have long been hoping for reasons to support the former president. At the convention, they were among those pleasantly surprised to hear stories about Trump being a caring grandfather sneaking candy to the grandkids, reaching out to Tucker Carlson’s wife, Susan, in concern after antifa threatened their family, and spending six hours with the family of deceased Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee and speaking with them “in a way that made” them “feel understood.”

But it was the first part of the former president’s prime-time address at the RNC that reinforced their hopes especially. “The discord and division in our society must be healed,” he said. “We rise together. Or we fall apart.”

About 15 minutes into the speech, however, the teleprompter stopped rolling as Trump left his prepared remarks and reverted to more familiar territory, including a reference to “crazy Nancy Pelosi” and a contention that not even the cumulative harm from the “10 worst presidents in the history of the United States” added up would outdo “the damage that Biden has done.”

Despite this, some were still reassured by the speech. AP reported about longtime Democrat Erich Hazen from Milwaukee saying, “I feel like he’s calmed things down a bit more,” and farmer Dave Struthers from Iowa saying, “He’s much improved. It’s more of a conversation with the American people, rather than yelling at them.”

A missed opportunity?

Even so, a wave of other commentaries followed Trump’s convention speech, emphasizing what they saw as a missed political opportunity. “Trump could have emerged from the assassination attempt by showcasing a more humble, gracious, transformed and improved version of himself,” columnist Bret Stephens wrote the Sunday after the attack — “one that could appeal to the wavering voters he still needs to win.”

“But that version simply doesn’t exist, and he couldn’t fake it for very long,” he concluded cynically.

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote about a “palpable excitement” and unity that had been evident across the Republican Party following the assassination attempt — “a sense that the elite firewall that’s limited non-right-wing support for Trumpism is finally cracking, that a landslide and a governing opportunity not seen since 1980 might be suddenly at hand.”

But the bulk of Trump’s RNC convention speech he called a “self-inflicted wound” and “an incredible waste of a political opportunity.” Trump, he said, has “never fully seized the political opportunities that his strange gifts and good fortune keep offering to him.”

Competing for the civility voter

If Trump had apparently stumbled in reaching this kind of “civility voter,” the opposite could be said of Harris and the Democratic ticket. As early as March, soon after Haley dropped out, President Joe Biden began reaching out proactively to moderate Republicans, writing on social media later that month, “Nikki Haley voters, Donald Trump doesn’t want your vote. I want to be clear: There is a place for you in my campaign.”

Haley herself had told her own supporters after dropping out, “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that” — adding later, “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me, and not assume that they’re just gonna be with him.”

Compared with the 11% of Haley voters in the primary who identified as Democrats, it has seemed a safe bet that many Haley supporters who were Republican would eventually “come home” to the party’s ticket. Yet when asked by a reporter this spring how he could bring Nikki Haley voters into his campaign, Trump responded, “I’m not sure we need too many.”

Before Haley exited the campaign, the former president had warned that anyone who donated to Haley’s campaign would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them.” But soon after Haley dropped out after Super Tuesday, Trump also posted on social media that he would “like to invite all of the Haley supporters to join the greatest movement in the history of our Nation.”

These mixed messages have been confusing to say the least. It also hasn’t helped moderates to hear some in the MAGA camp frame the value of civility itself as some kind of sign of insufficient strength or loyalty. At the primary debate between candidates for Utah governor, one commenter posted in the online feed, “Disagree Better is code for ‘give dems what they want’” — mirroring the rhetoric of the candidate Phil Lyman, who likewise attacked Disagree Better on the campaign trail as “a leftist, Marxist tactic to get people to drop their opinions.”

Harris’s pitch to civility voters

Like Trump, Harris spoke to more unifying themes her DNC speech, “Our nation, with this election, has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”

“And let me say,” she added, “I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans ... I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations.”

She went on to characterize Trump as an extremist in a variety of issues, including abortion policy, where she claimed Trump was planning to “create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions.”

“Is she talking about me?” Trump said in response, calling her response “dishonest” and insisting she was “making up” some things he had “never even heard of,” such as plans to have an anti-abortion coordinator.

Since Tim Walz told MSNBC in late July, “these guys are just weird,” the Harris campaign has channeled the new vice presidential candidate’s more insulting rhetoric. Statements from the Harris campaign have included, “JD Vance is weird and creepy” and “Trump is old and quite weird.”

In recent weeks, they have been all too ready to amplify and promote accusations that Trump is a “fascist,” assertions seen even among Trump critics as obvious rhetorical excess.

Cox’s case for the Republican ticket

Despite Trump’s track record, signs of new possibilities emerging in the former president were enough to convince Gov. Cox to finally endorse the former president, after the shock of the assassination attempt prompted a weekend of prayer and contemplation from the governor. Later, after watching Trump’s own convention speech, Cox said he has “reason to believe” Trump has changed and will be trying harder to “bring the temperature down,” stating, “he’s never said things like he said in the past week.”

In that hand-delivered letter Monday after the Butler rally, Cox told Trump that since his life had been miraculously spared, “you have the opportunity to do something that no other person on earth can do right now: unify and save our country.”

Pleading with Trump to be “a Lincoln to bring us together,” Cox wrote, “I believe you are capable of being that kind of leader for this troubled nation,” citing the former president’s statements after the shooting as showing “a side of you most of us have not seen.”

Cox has since acknowledged the letter was “admittedly a little over-the-top,” albeit sincere — reiterating in the days since that, his support for Trump, far from a betrayal of his desire to promote civil discourse, was actually an attempt to make inroads he hadn’t been able to make before, within many of the voters in his own party.

“Even if it’s the smallest, tiniest possible influence over the next four years to move things in a better direction, it’s worth taking, even at great personal risk or harm,” he told McKay Coppins. That’s just what this appears to have cost the governor, who describes many allies in the fight against polarization “very angry at me.”

But when he thinks of Trump’s devoted supporters, like rural folks in his hometown of Fairview, it’s worth it. “I really do care about them, but they don’t think I care about them,” Cox said of his hometown rural neighbors. “If you’re a Never-Trumper, you’re the enemy.”

“That ‘Love your enemies’ stuff — I hate it. I wish Jesus had never said that,” Cox said; but if he was serious about peace-making, then working inside his party, rather than criticizing them as polarizing enemies, would be his “ultimate test.”

While “some might say cynically (Cox’s endorsement) is born of political necessity; I think it comes from his unquenchable idealism,” one person who has worked closely with Cox told Deseret News reporter Sam Benson.

Other missed opportunities?

“You have a chance to build a coalition of support that our country has not seen since Ronald Reagan,” Cox had expressed in that hand-delivered letter. “By treating President Biden with basic human dignity and respect and by emphasizing unity rather than hate, you will win this election by an historic margin and become one of our nation’s most transformational leaders.”

The historic news that soon followed about Biden dropping out became another chance for the former president to rise to a higher level — especially since Biden had sought to express genuine concern in a personal phone call to “Donald” following the assassination attempt, described as “good, short, and respectful.”

About Biden’s choice to voluntarily step down, CNN commentator Van Jones said with emotion that this was a “human moment,” expressing his love for the president and his sorrow and empathy for the “huge moment for him and his family.” Jones suggested Biden deserved respect for this humbling decision and sacrifice — “When your arm gets tired, you let someone else pitch to finish the game.”

Many observers, however, were saddened at the bellicose tone of posts from Trump to Biden’s humbling decisions — especially following Trump’s own personal appeals to national unity. The same day Biden exited the race, Trump wrote online, “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.” Trump repeated in a second statement, “Crooked Joe Biden is the Worst President, by far, in the History of our Nation. He has done everything possible to destroy our Country.”

“What a missed opportunity to take the high road!” former BYU professor David Kirkham said in response to the president’s comments. “I was hoping a man who just had a brush with death and saw another man die for him might find a little humility.”

The day after Biden’s announcement, Trump posted, “It’s a new day and Joe Biden doesn’t remember quitting the race yesterday!” He later called the president “incompetent,” forgetful and anti-democratic.

In subsequent days, the former president called Harris at a rally a “a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office.” Over the last month, as reported by The New York Times, Trump has called Harris a “wack job”; “dumb as a rock”; “real garbage”; “a bum” and “nasty” — while amplifying innuendo that Harris once traded sexual favors to accelerate her career.

“You know, I was supposed to be nice,” Trump said at one rally. “They say something happened to me when I got shot — I became nice.”

Then he said that “when you are dealing with ... very dangerous people, you can’t be too nice” — drawing cheers from the crowd when he boasted, “I’m not going to be nice.”

Civility voters kept watching

If politics is indeed “war without bloodshed,” as Mao Zedong once said, then perhaps combative rhetoric is to be expected from all involved. After all, if you “really want to win it,” as they say, you need to be able to do what it takes.

But that’s precisely what’s so confusing to many onlookers today sympathetic to the Republican values. In the exact moment when Trump has needed to expand his voter pool and reach those shocked and potentially softened by the attempt on his life, the former president had again provided evidence for why some had stayed away from him in the first place.

If Cox’s letter and endorsement represented a kind of plea to the former president to reach for the better angels of his nature, comments and rhetoric in subsequent months can only have left him and those like him dismayed.

Peggy Noonan’s late July warning in The Wall Street Journal proved to be prescient: “Everything is about to get meaner, more vicious and primal” — predicting specifically that a Harris campaign “revives the party’s hunger” with “its angers” likely “more awake.”

While Harris has not been shy at sending her own barbs toward Trump, more positive emotions of hope and “joy” have caught some observers’ attention. No, “joy is not a strategy,” as Patrick Healy wrote in The New York Times following the DNC. But for civility voters — with some notable and prominent exceptions — the tone of the Harris-Walz campaign and their attempt to reclaim the Obama-era mantle of political civility may well be persuasive.

“Mr. Trump and his forces can’t not be mean,” Noonan argues, suggesting that “it is their essence when threatened.”

If true, that’s a great disappointment to civility voters, who see basic kindness and decency as options for us all. The decisive question for many of them may well simply be, which candidate and party will uphold those core values most?