“How can you be so negative to Harris and be undecided voters?” Frank Luntz asked 15 young Americans the other night, with a mix of exasperation and curiosity. Then, a half-hour later, as one 24-year-old dwelled on the Jan. 6 attacks, Luntz asked, “How can you be an undecided voter when you say Trump should never get anywhere near power?”

For the final 11 weeks of the presidential race, Times Opinion is doing something new: We have assembled a panel of 15 undecided voters between the ages of 18 and 27 and will check in with them regularly through Election Day to track their opinions of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and the issues and news that matter most to them.

We’re zeroing in on young voters because they are often stereotyped or overlooked as elections get down to the wire, and because they are a potentially decisive group in swing states such as Michigan. And with many younger Americans supporting Harris, we were curious why these 15 voters in particular were more ambivalent about her. In 2020, five of our 15 voters supported Joe Biden; two voted for Trump; seven didn’t vote (all but one of them was too young); and one wrote in Mitt Romney. The Harris campaign told me they are aiming to win over first-time voters and some Republicans.

The participants are wary of Ms. Harris right now — they say she is too far left, and that she covered up President Biden’s aging issues — and want to know what she would do about inflation, public safety and the Israel-Gaza war. But they are also skeptical of Mr. Trump, and many of them were appalled by his behavior on Jan. 6, 2021. Several saw Mr. Trump more positively after the assassination attempt on him last month, but they were quickly turned off by his attacks on Ms. Harris and her race.

So, as Mr. Luntz asked, why are they undecided? What became clear is that these 15 Americans grew up in a really negative time, and they care deeply about their country but are worried about it, and don’t want to see the White House in the wrong hands.

“I’m undecided because policy matters, but so does respecting the institutions and systems that got us here as a country,” said Chris, a 24-year-old from Florida who described himself as a Reagan Republican. “It’s important that we not give in to people who want to destroy those.”

We’re curious to see whether Chris and the other 14 voters change their minds from now until Nov. 5, and whom they decide to vote for. We hope you’ll follow along, too.

On a scale of 0 to 10, how optimistic are you about your personal future?

Eight.

Five.

Eight.

Six.

Six.

Three.

Eight.

Four.

Five.

Four.

Five.

Seven.

None of you said 9 or 10. Can you explain why none of you have extreme optimism?

I’m a new mom. My husband and I also bought a house. The economic challenges around owning a home, they’ve just been really difficult.

I’m a law student. Things tend to be very expensive. It seems like you have to have a high income to buy a starter home.

The economy and crime don’t make me super optimistic. I live in D.C. There are plenty of shootings. It does not feel safe as a woman to walk around.

I recently graduated and had a tough time going into the workforce. I come from a generation that is plagued by tragedy, whether it’s going into college during the pandemic, lots of gun violence when I was in elementary and middle school, economic turmoil.

Now let’s do the country. How optimistic or pessimistic are you about America? What number between 0 and 10 describes your view of America?

Four.

Two.

Six.

Five.

Five.

Three.

Four.

Three.

Five.

Three.

Five.

Four.

Tell me why these numbers are so bad.

Our country isn’t being run by people who have our best interests in mind, whether that’s politicians suggesting tariffs or other measures.

No matter who wins, we’re screwed. When we wake up on Nov. 6, half the country is going to be pissed.

Before Biden dropped out, you had someone who wasn’t cognitively there. On the Republican side, you have a felon who only seems interested in rehashing 2016 and 2020. No matter who wins, the divide and risk of political violence is only going to get greater.

That’s so short-term. You guys can only see four years in the future. What do you think about the actual future-future, like for the rest of our lives?

I still think it’s damaged. Our children will have to grow up in the country and the climate that we create today.

The temperature in the country has been put up so high.

I feel like the country became very divided when Covid happened. People would attack you and were so, so blatantly disrespectful if you felt even slightly differently. And people getting canceled left and right for having beliefs that were just slightly different than everyone else’s.

But that’s because we don’t want to be united, right? I went from an eight about my own life to a four about the country because I don’t see long-term institutions being built up, like the family and public schools, where diversity of opinion is normal.

What is the most important issue that’s going to determine who you’re going to vote for in November?

Will Kamala Harris be a leftist on gender policy and education policy or not?

Lowering the national debt for future generations in order to preserve Social Security.

Strong military.

Relationship with Israel.

Relationship with Israel, as well.

Funding for higher education.

Do I feel safe in my city, and is there considerable unrest in a lot of cities across the U.S.?

Antisemitism.

Inflation, specifically the cost of living.

Economic regulation and deregulation.

The untaxed tip thing kind of interests me.

Political violence in the United States.

Inflation and the price of groceries.

Health care accessibility.

Specific plans to actually combat inflation.

Are these issues being discussed or not in the presidential race?

I want specific details on inflation. Trump doesn’t really give specific details. And Kamala was a vice president under Joe Biden when inflation went up.

I think Trump cares a lot about looking tough on crime, but I feel like when he’s actually pressed for specifics, he doesn’t offer anything.

It’s just a bunch of buzzwords at this point.

I totally agree with Joseph.

I think the biggest problem with the Harris campaign is that there’s not any set policies being put out. We don’t know if she’s going to run the same as she did in 2020, which was very left.

In terms of antisemitism, I feel like this is the first election where Jewish Americans have to vote first as Jews and second as Americans, because it’s gotten so unsafe over the last year.

For the first time in American history? You actually believe that?

That’s kind of why I’m undecided. I’m also Jewish. The climate has become very, very unsafe. You want to make sure that you are also voting for the good of your own community and your own people.

I was in college last semester. There was an encampment. I’m someone of Jewish faith myself, and the climate is just very frustrating on campuses. Any civilian tragedy is a tragedy. No one should have to die. But it’s been twisted, it’s gotten out of control, putting Israel at fault. People at a music festival got brutally murdered by savages. Some were raped. And now there’s being accusations that people were lying about being raped. It makes me scared to even talk about it in public and just be Jewish in public, because you go around these encampments and they’re very confrontational.

One of my friends was assaulted at Columbia. Burning the United States flag, defacing a lot of public property and vandalizing and breaking down buildings — not only is it antisemitic, anti-Israel, it’s very anti-American as well.

I support speaking up for the Palestinian cause. The assaults, the encampments, I don’t support all that. I support speaking up for the Palestinian cause, but all the violence and all the other stuff, I’m not for.

I’m across the street from U.C.L.A., and I have a friend who was there as a kind of medic who got brutally beat up by counterprotesters. Later the police showed up, not to get the counterprotesters but to start rounding up students and putting them in jail. I feel like that’s an affront to free speech. They should be able to protest, even if I don’t like the way they’re talking decolonization in a way that I don’t agree with and being very pro-Hamas.

George, can I ask you how you see it?

You can clearly see how well Mossad could have taken care of a lot of these issues instead of Israel going in with a hammer and smashing everything to........

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