In an extraordinary admission that Frank Luntz said is unheard of in his focus groups, the veteran Republican pollster reported that Trump voters have conceded they “made a mistake” in supporting the president after switching to the Democrats in Tuesday’s midterms.
Luntz was on CNBC’s Squawk Box Wednesday to say those former Trump partisans had soured on Republicans because of the war and the cost of living and higher prices, following the Democrats’ takeover of the House and Senate.
Luntz said he asked whether this was a vote against the Republican Party or one embracing the Democrats.
“And almost unanimously, it was voting against the Republicans,” Luntz told co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin, citing disappointment over the war, higher prices and affordability.
He added: “And in the end, these voters acknowledged that they made a mistake. And that never happens in these focus groups.”
Sorkin wanted to be sure the ones he was talking about had been for Trump in 2024 before making the switch.
“Correct,” Luntz replied, adding: “And they’d all voted Democrat.”
The program then played a video from a call with 14 voters, where gas and health care costs and the state of the economy were top of mind. One woman was heard saying: “I would tell him to do something about the gas prices and the health care here that they promised us.”
Back in the studio, Luntz latched onto her words. “Her last statement, that they promised us, they believed him. They absolutely bought into him in a way that voters don’t normally.”
Was the election a referendum on the Trump administration? Luntz looked at what the voters who put the president back in the White House two years ago had expected.
“I see this as profound disappointment that they expected him to be able to do this and that he didn’t deliver,” he said. “They believed him, and they were willing to forget everything else that had happened in 2024 to put him back in office. And then they said, you know what? He didn’t deliver.”
Later in the interview, Luntz turned to what the Democrats would do with their victory. He questioned whether their promise to hold people accountable would extend to their own party, and whether there was room for cooperation on the problems voters wanted addressed.
“If you hold the other accountable, that’s revenge,” he said.
For Luntz, the result also carried a message about the limits of campaign spending when people were struggling to buy food for their families. “Money was less important in this election than ever before,” he said.