‘Extreme’ or ‘fake’: Swing voters weigh Trump or Harris

Speaker 1  0:00  

This will be the last focus group I do before election day itself. Things have gotten pretty rough on the campaign trail, and you all are here for a purpose. Every one of you comes from a key swing state. Almost all of you were going back and forth between the candidates. Almost all of you have said in the screener that you were still open to hear arguments from the other side. To begin this session, I want a single word or phrase to describe Donald Trump, Gregory from Pennsylvania, ‘

radical 

John from Arizona, 

extreme 

Danny from Georgia, 

obnoxious 

James from Nevada, 

extreme 

John from Pennsylvania, 

rough 

Adam from Arizona, 

narcissist 

Phil from Nevada, 

unyielding 

Morgan from North Carolina, 

intense 

Brian from Arizona, 

same old, same old. 

Now let’s do Kamala Harris word or phrase to describe her, Morgan, let’s start with you confusing.

 Phil, 

a mystery.

 Brian, 

growing Gary, word her face to describe Harris.

 

Unknown Speaker  1:11  

I don’t know where she stands. 

Craig, best candidate available.

 Christine,

 

Speaker 1  1:17  

insufferable. 

Adam from Michigan. 

Fake 

Adam from Arizona, 

fake 

Paulette 

Danny, 

mysterious 

John from Arizona, 

and John from Pennsylvania,

 inauthentic and 

Gregory from Pennsylvania, 

flip flopper.

 

{WIPE}

{02 Double-haters}

{TRT: 3:18}

 

Speaker 1  0:00  

Okay, how many of you don’t like either candidate? How many of you have a negative impression of either candidate? Okay, that doesn’t make you feel so good. So can you guys tell me why you dislike both of them? That surely one of them would appeal to you you don’t like both explain to me why anybody? John from Arizona, oh,

 

Unknown Speaker  0:19  

anytime one candidate messes up and there’s an opportunity for the other candidate to win. My boat, they both seem to miss comment on that. Anyone? Yeah, yeah. It was

 

Unknown Speaker  0:28  

like, I feel like following the vice presidential debate, you know, JD Vance made a pretty good picture for himself. Thought I could suck up voting for him, and then he was back on the campaign trail and makes himself as unlikable, and himself and Donald Trump as unlikable, that make me not want to vote for them again, put me right back in the same right back in the same place. Christine, I

 

Unknown Speaker  0:44  

think the same thing happened to me. Go ahead for me, I’m actually kind of on the fence because I dislike both of them equally, but I don’t need to like them. It’s more about the all the plans and the future stuff and how they’re going to get things done and sticking to, you know, a plan, and neither one of them is really doing that very well.

 

Unknown Speaker  1:06  

For me, I feel like it’s the first time I flip flopped on so many occasions, leaning towards Harris and then Trump, and then back to Harris and Trump. I’ve never kind of wavered that much in past.

 

Speaker 1  1:18  

Okay, I want to follow up on that. How many of you would say that you wavered more in this election than any previous presidential election? Okay, really want to understand that Danny, then James, then Christine. Why did you waiver so much?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:32  

I just feel like there’s such a disconnect between Trump and Harris and I just it’s they’re just really hard to figure out. I just can’t seem to figure it either. Amount

 

Speaker 1  1:44  

they did a debate, they have ads, they do TV shows. What’s so difficult? Danny,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:50  

I just, I just don’t know if they’re gonna do what they say they’re gonna do, and it’s just hard to pick one. James, why

 

Unknown Speaker  1:57  

is it worse this cycle than any other? Well, for me. I, you know, one point Trump is just going off on his tantrums, and then you look at Harris, and she’s, like, failing miserably at her job interview, I feel like, and then I, you know, I think that she maybe has more bringing unity with the country. And then I think Trump maybe can handle the economy better. So I just, I get a little bit here and a little bit there, but just have just like qualities about COVID. It’s been difficult for me. Oh, I

 

Unknown Speaker  2:32  

wasn’t able, I wasn’t eligible to vote in 2016 but 2020 it was pretty clear. Like, yeah, I voted for Biden, mainly for Trump’s disastrous handling of the COVID pandemic. But since 2020, having now living in Arizona, I’ve become more conservative. It’s literally a day by day. Yes, I like the tougher stance on immigration. But then when you call Puerto Rico, an island full of Americans, a garbage Island. You’re not doing any favors. And Harris, I just it’s that inauthentic, canned awkward laughter with and when placed with any question that really pushes her for an answer that I just I find so unappealing. Yeah.

 

{WIPE}

{03 Flipping back and forth}

{TRT: 6:42}

 

Unknown Speaker  0:00  

Who else is back and forth,

 

Speaker 1  0:02  

Craig from Georgia. Um, well, after Trump debated Biden, he did have the upper hand, because he made Biden look, you know, so old and just not mentally there to do the job. But after he debated Kamalu, she had the edge, but I think that her public appearances since haven’t done her a lot of favors, but I think that she has done, in my opinion, one thing that Trump has not done as well, which has provided specifics in policy to show how she would be the better choice.

 

Unknown Speaker  0:42  

Can you show me why this flipping back and forth? What’s so?

 

Unknown Speaker  0:47  

Why is this worse than other elections?

 

Speaker 1  0:49  

Because I just feel like we’ve never seen an election where, like, the majority of the country just doesn’t like either candidate. I mean, it was pretty rough four years ago as well, but I think it’s just gotten worse.

 

Unknown Speaker  1:03  

Yeah, Jimmy from Pennsylvania, I I’ve never, I’ve been voting since 1984 I’ve never had an election where I’ve liked both bottoms of the ticket much better than the tops of the ticket, and I think both of them, particularly Vance of the four candidates, seems much brighter than everybody else. Can I

 

Unknown Speaker  1:23  

comment on that?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:23  

Yes, you can. Vance.

 

Unknown Speaker  1:26  

I was talking with my parents after, and Vance seemed a lot slicker like that. Definitely that Yale Law Education definitely came out. Seymour presidential and you’re right after the vice presidential debate where you Frank, you were saying that the Midwest nice one. I was like, geez, can’t we have these two as presidential material? And things would be so much easier?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:46  

I agree with that as well. This first time that I really gave credit to the vice presidential debate, they it was a civil debate, and a lot of like bipartisan from both both of them, but I did favor Vance out of

 

Unknown Speaker  2:01  

both of them, Adam, and then Christine Sure, after January 6, that was so horrendous, I swore I never vote for Trump again. And then the legal stuff started. They tried throwing him in jail, and that was disgusting to me. That shouldn’t happen in this country. And then the bullets started flying towards them. My problem with Trump is, if I judge him on his four years versus the past four years, Trump wins hands down, I’m never going to hang out with the guy, so I don’t care about his personality. That said Vance scares the hell out of me. My wife’s from Ukraine, and her family’s there when Vance goes after Ukraine and says those negative things, God forbid they assassinate Trump and he he becomes in charge. I have a stake in in that war. I’m worried for my extended family, for my in laws, Christine,

 

Unknown Speaker  2:55  

I’ll say it. Trump is like that guy in high school who promises Pete free pizza every Friday, and he’s just gonna give you everything you want. And then Kamala is changing her opinions based on other people’s opinions of her opinion, and it’s like every two weeks. So they’re both just all over the place. I literally, earlier, would have voted for RFK before either of these two. But,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:28  

you know, harsh that is hard. Yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:30  

anyone else going back and forth and back and forth?

 

Unknown Speaker  3:33  

I had been tell me why? Well, I can’t. I have no idea what Harris’s policies are at all, because no matter who asked her, she’s evasive. Okay, she’s evasive. You can’t get an answer from her. And she’s been asked, you know, what would you do different, you know, from your your boss right now, she said nothing. So that’s kind of scary. And then, on the other hand, like that guy said, If I judge on Trump’s term, that was good, that was a good time. That was a good time. Financially for me, things our economy was better. And so I’d like some things he does, and I hate a lot of things he does. He won’t shut up. He’s never wrong. He can’t even listen to his advisers when they tell him, dude, we hear you. Just don’t say that out loud, you know, yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  4:32  

if you could take Trump’s personality out of the picture, he’s much better leader, I believe, in terms of running the country. Kamala, she’s so evasive and elusive with any kind of policies. And what did she do in her supporting role as Vice President, let alone taking on the role of the President? I think she just lacks the leadership qualities from Yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  4:57  

she kind of felt like Brittany from Georgia. And then John from Arizona,

 

Unknown Speaker  5:01  

I think that Kamala is clear on what her plan is, what her some of her policies are, which, you know, metal, better health care. She’s gotten the things for the insulin for with diabetes. She also, she also spoke on women’s rights. So they’re the abortion rights. However, when debated, when the Trump and Kamala Harris debate, and asked, they asked Trump what his plan was. Literally, he had no plan. He said that we will plan verb verbatim when we got there, when, pretty much almost like we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, when I get I, when I get elected, then I’ll tell you the plan. So I mean two weeks concepts back and they, I mean they went back and forth, like some of the agendas with with Trump now, I will say the economy when he was in office four years ago, I think was in a better a better space. I mean, from a business perspective, um, from a entrepreneurial perspective, I think that he is the better candidate. But then he brings out the the division, all of these race wars. So it’s just, and then the Democratic Party has another agenda as well when it comes to the LGBTQ community, and it just different agendas that’s being pushed on this, on our world that doesn’t have to be so I’m just, I’m really torn between both of them.

 

{WIPE}

{04 Most important moment of past 30 days}

{TRT: 10:57}

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:00  

What is the most important event of this campaign over the last 30 days that stands out to you? At what moment did you say? You know what? I’m supporting Candidate A and not Candidate B. Morgan, I’m going to start with you.

 

Speaker 1  0:16  

I think the turning point was the vice presidential debate for me, and then the code switching that is occurring with Kamala Harris.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:25  

What do you mean by code switching?

 

Speaker 1  0:26  

So we see her often at different rallies and different events, and she caters heavily to the audience that she’s with, whereas Trump is very much so I hate to use the word authentic to describe him, but he is authentically himself in those moments. He doesn’t code switch to align better with whom his audience is. He doesn’t change his personality. He is who He is, and he owns that, whereas she code switches when she goes to separate events. And we see that over and over again. Portrayed Paulette,

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:54  

what is the key moment of the last 30 days that had the biggest impact on your vote

 

Unknown Speaker  1:00  

the last 30 days? Yes, okay, um, when I found out I was going to be in this forum, my watch the Joe Rogan interview. I’m not a fan of Joe Rogan, but I liked it because it was, to me, it was Trump unplugged. And I’m not into the fights or anything, but, um, I thought he was impressive.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:19  

Adam from Michigan, what’s the key event over the last three days had the biggest impact on you?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:25  

I would say, I mean, two fold. One was pretty big, the vice presidential debate. And then, I mean, it was most recently as yesterday, watching Trump at Madison Square Garden. Totally insane, off the cuff craziness that makes me, remind me why I would not like want to vote for it.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:39  

Greg from Georgia,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:40  

I would say yesterday’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, people were just talking crazy, and you completely alienating a big portion of a fan base that you trying to get to vote for you in your home state, like it was just like, it doesn’t even make logical sense. And that sealed it for me. Brittany,

 

Unknown Speaker  2:01  

I’m I’m similar as well. The Vice President presidential debate, which is actually the most civil we’ve seen in a long time. It was actually political. That’s as what it should be. And then the Trump yesterday, the Madison Square Gardens. That was, that was just crazy. Bill

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:24  

from Nevada

 

Morgan Wright  2:25  

last Wednesday’s CNN town hall with Vice President Harris. Why? Because I think that she missed a handful of really good opportunities where she could have drawn a contrast. She seemed to be very uncomfortable throughout the town hall, and she had chances to say I was vice president, not President. I had chances to, you know, make a difference down the line, but at the time, I wasn’t president, she had a chance to really show a different path forward, and we didn’t

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:49  

see that John from Pennsylvania, uh,

 

Unknown Speaker  2:52  

Elon Musk, endorsing Trump, and then Trump bring him on to be somebody who’s going to cut regulation and cut spending. I think it’s important to put smart people in in a in a new Trump administration,

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  3:07  

and Gregory from Pennsylvania.

 

Unknown Speaker  3:09  

So the shocker for me was reading about the economic issue is my number one issue of the campaign, and I was shocked to read the 23 Nobel Prize winners said that Kamala plan was vastly superior to Trump’s plan, and that was shocking, so that really was a turning point. Okay,

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  3:31  

I want to know more about this rally. And Patrick, I don’t know if this is going to be published too late, but clearly the rally is on your mind, so I want to understand it by a show of hands. Who thought the rally presented Donald Trump at his best. Raise your hands. 123,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:51  

who thought the Madison

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  3:52  

Square Garden rally showed Donald Trump at his worst? 1234, okay. Why his best any one of the three of you? Why his best? Paulette, go ahead,

 

Unknown Speaker  4:05  

I didn’t watch the 30 speakers. I just watched his speech, and I thought his speech was not as wild as most of his speeches. I thought he pretty much stayed on point, and I thought it was an attempt to be unifying who disagrees with that?

 

Unknown Speaker  4:24  

Yeah, I do. I think it was, I don’t think it’s a unifying to say, you know all the people that disagree with you out, out in the on the US, or you know the enemy from within. That’s not language we should be using. That’s not not who you know people that disagree with me on this phone call or people that disagree with me in the world are. It’s not language our politicians should be using to refer to to voters. That’s not unifying. Kamala

 

Unknown Speaker  4:44  

does the same thing. Yeah, so it’s a wash. I don’t think Trump’s talking about the voters. I think he’s talking about the politicians when he says enemy from within, like.

 

Unknown Speaker  5:00  

There’s a lot of enemies with him. Democrats,

 

Unknown Speaker  5:01  

pretty much. Yeah, that’s

 

Unknown Speaker  5:04  

what I wanted to be, too. Democrats impeach him. They

 

Unknown Speaker  5:06  

took him to court. They’ve done a lot.

 

Unknown Speaker  5:09  

So what 50% of America is the enemy from within? Yeah? No,

 

Unknown Speaker  5:13  

that’s camel says, you know, we’re fascists and Nazis. Yeah?

 

Unknown Speaker  5:18  

Nazi garden. I mean, they were coming undone, the Democrats and media with, you know, 1000s of people that were enthusiastic, showing up at an event. And there was a diversity demographics. I mean, there was men, women, Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, you know. So I thought that was the first time that I really saw Trump unifying a crowd there to support him and have a good time. And they I mean, how could people? There were 1000s of Nazis there.

 

Unknown Speaker  5:50  

I was at Madison Square Garden yesterday. I walked by it. I did not see a lot of diversity, and there was anything but cordial. I’m sorry

 

Unknown Speaker  5:59  

when you have your top immigration advisor, echoing Hitler’s, Germany is for Germans, and just replacing America for Americans, that’s really, really dangerous.

 

Unknown Speaker  6:08  

Yeah, is Israel the new Hitler journey. I mean, they support and have good relations with Trump named a city after him. I don’t understand.

 

Unknown Speaker  6:18  

I think Trump said, Yeah, I think Trump’s been actually, and I excuse my language, actually pretty ballsy in this run, much more so than the other two. And that, I think he’s going into places that he’s really trying to reach out, you know, whether it’s barber shops, whether it’s going after African American men going after Latino men, going after these young, alienated people, and right or wrong, I think last night was sort of him planting a flag and saying, No, I’m going to be president for all 50 states, not just red states.

 

Unknown Speaker  6:54  

Then why does he say if California won’t get federal aid when

 

Unknown Speaker  6:58  

they’re on fire? And he only was like, Oh, they voted for me, so yeah, I’ll give them a

 

Unknown Speaker  7:04  

I don’t believe that he would do a second term like that. He’s gonna have a lot more moderates and liberals in his in his cabinet. 

 

No, I disagree. If he brings on a Robert Kennedy Jr, or Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk, these are people that are not going to be extreme to the right.

 

Unknown Speaker  7:23  

Was anybody to him, they just say yes to Donald Trump. They’re like, just stroke his ego. That’s the pattern between them all.

 

Unknown Speaker  7:31  

I think this is it for him. He is not he is not the future not only the Republican Party. He’s not the future of this country. He’s the next generation is going to take over. He’s to bridge to the next generation,

 

Unknown Speaker  7:44  

Bridge to nowhere. Yeah,

 

Speaker 1  7:45  

I’m going to agree with John a little bit on this, that I think we’re talking about more moderate politics within the White House. I think that he’s really leaning towards it, and I am probably. JF, like, RFK, is least favorite person over here because of what I do for a career, and his health policies and things like that are far from anything that I would ever lay out for anyone. However, he has historically been democratic. He has attempted to run more moderate, and then has leaned more conservative because of his health policies that better align with Trump’s. And I agree, and I mean, Elon Musk was a Democrat for many years. He is leading more moderate I mean, I think he has some extreme stances currently, but as a whole, I agree. I think that he is attempting to find a more moderate cabinet that’s going to align with younger voters.

 

Unknown Speaker  8:33  

I also think that it you cannot understate the effects of the last four years the Democratic party going after, forget about politicians going after average people who disagreed on COVID, who disagreed on school boards, who disagreed on, you know, boys and girls playing in women’s sports, you know, going three times disagree with them. I

 

Unknown Speaker  8:57  

mean, I’m just of the school where everybody wants to find anecdotal evidence to support anything, everybody wants to find a cause to hold on to. I mean, I just don’t understand. Trump has not done anything that says he wants to be moderate. I’m willing. I was willing to listen.

 

Unknown Speaker  9:11  

I disagree. I agree with the other two that pointed out that he did extend an olive branch by bringing on. RFK Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard was campaigning for Bernie Sanders. That’s as extreme as you get on the left. So I think that definitely is a Olive Branch.

 

Unknown Speaker  9:28  

Yeah, but this is just trying to, like, I think what did Christine say earlier is that he’s like the guy at school who gives out, you know, his lunch money every day. He’s just trying to say and do whatever he possibly can, to, like, try to convince people to vote for him, even if it’s not what he believes, even if they’re not his principles. He’s like, totally lacking in principles and totally lacking in any, like, firm policy belief. It’s

 

Unknown Speaker  9:51  

like, but again, who works for him don’t support and that has to say something to that says something to me, none, no cabinet person to work. Farm is supporting them. I said, I can think off top of my head like they work with them every day. That says something.

 

Unknown Speaker  10:05  

Four years under him, we didn’t get into any wars. Economy was doing great. We’re not

 

Unknown Speaker  10:09  

in any wars now. We’re not in any wars now we’re we’re

 

Unknown Speaker  10:13  

in the firing line over in the Middle East. Yeah, we have troops sitting there and they’re showing them, and Biden won’t do anything.

 

Unknown Speaker  10:24  

They did the same thing to Americans when Trump was in office. Man,

 

Unknown Speaker  10:27  

you just didn’t hear about

 

Unknown Speaker  10:28  

1. They did the same things.

 

Unknown Speaker  10:32  

They were saying. Trump was going to lead us to world war three. We’re on the edge of world war three now, and take us there. Trump didn’t take us there. It’s all biting. I agree with Trump on that the Afghan withdrawal was a complete disaster and

 

Unknown Speaker  10:51  

that and keep in mind that the concepts of that Afghanistan withdrawal were drawn up by Trump.

 

{WIPE}

{05 Hesitations about Trump and Harris}

{TRT: 4:07}

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:00  

What is your specific hesitation about voting for Donald Trump in a sentence? Danny, I’m going to start with you. What is your hesitation about voting for Donald Trump in one sentence,

 

Unknown Speaker  0:13  

if he’s really going to, you know, compare live up to all those promises that he’s made.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:19  

James, what’s your hesitation

 

Speaker 1  0:20  

just, you know, when he’s allowed to make America great, and everything’s going to be changed, and everything is dreaming big, but I just don’t know, he doesn’t have a plan, and he’ll be quick to blame somebody else. No, it doesn’t achieve that.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:35  

Christine, um,

 

Unknown Speaker  0:37  

trust would be my issue with voting against Trump. I don’t know what would make me like change or vote and see, that’s the thing. I don’t believe either one of them. So I’m basically choosing between who I believe the most is telling the fewer lies. So

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:00  

Craig, what’s your biggest hesitation about Donald Trump?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:04  

Uh, unified policy and lack of trust to come up with competent policy to actually make change. Gary,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:14  

he’s too extreme in some ways. John from

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:17  

Arizona,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:18  

too extreme and a repeat of January 6 that succeeds

 

Unknown Speaker  1:23  

Brittany race war and not clear on what his plans and policies are. Adam, Arizona, John from

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:33  

Pennsylvania,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:34  

his personality and his temperament. Morgan, his disillusion to arrogance. Ryan,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:40  

I’ve seen this movie before, and I don’t think I liked it out of Arizona. Uh,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:46  

unclear, with a stance on Ukraine, and don’t like Vance’s stance. Bill, what

 

Unknown Speaker  1:52  

the next four years of scrub would mean for the next 14 years of the Republican Party,

 

Unknown Speaker  1:57  

all that he won’t be able to end the worldwide conflicts fast enough. So, hey, we can get to the business of this country, Gregory,

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:05  

I

 

Unknown Speaker  2:06  

just feel like his policies could potentially take away a lot of our freedoms. These

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:11  

are pretty strong hesitations. I want to do the same question with Kamala Harris, in a sense, what’s your greatest hesitation about voting for her. Gregory, I’m going to start with you.

 

Unknown Speaker  2:23  

So my greatest hesitation is I feel she’s untested. First of all, she’s already in the office. She’s making promises about doing things that they should be doing now.

 

Unknown Speaker  2:34  

Adam from Arizona,

 

Unknown Speaker  2:35  

flip flop on just about every issue there is

 

Unknown Speaker  2:40  

Morgan, unguided direction.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:43  

John from Pennsylvania, her weakness

 

Unknown Speaker  2:44  

and billion dollars she’s raised, who, who’s going to really control and run her and and run our government? Adam from Michigan, that she’ll

 

Unknown Speaker  2:56  

make it into office and execute on a lot of the what I view as extreme policies she espoused her 2020 campaign. Brittany,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:03  

repeat of the last four years. She’s actually have been quiet up until now. John from Arizona that

 

Unknown Speaker  3:11  

she wouldn’t do anything different over the last four years. Gary,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:15  

I don’t think that she has a personal commitment to any policy, and that bothers me. Greg,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:20  

that she wouldn’t be able to continue to knock down the inflation that’s hit the whole country economy. Danny,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:30  

I don’t see her closing our borders in an effective manner and way. James,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:34  

it seems like closer

 

Speaker 1  3:36  

we get to the election. She’s becoming more desperate and lacks the leadership qualities that I would come to find in a candidate that’s running for president, Christine,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:47  

I have some deep concerns constitutionally, and that might be a little bit unfair, but it’s due to the party she’s in and all the things they want to keep changing in our Constitution, and actually did not follow the courts when they made certain choices as well. So that’s sketchy to me.

 

{WIPE}

{06 The ‘change’ candidate}

{TRT: 5:15}

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:00  

Will Harris, if elected, pursue change, or will she be more of the same? I’m letting you define what change is, letting you define what more of the same is. But if you had to choose, does she represent change, or will she be more of the same? Who says she’s about change? Raise your hands, 123, who says she’s more about the same. Raise your hands, overwhelming everybody else. My god, she’s I want to explore this. She would be the first African American female she’s spoken about differences between her and Joe Biden, on tax policy, on budgets, on setting up priorities. Y’all don’t buy it. Is that what you’re telling me here? Phil, you’re nodding your head. Tell me why. And then, Morgan,

 

Morgan Wright  0:49  

yeah, because, like I mentioned last week with the the town hall and CNN, she had opportunities to draw contrast, but she seems deeply uncomfortable. She seems to miss those opportunities. And it’s pretty clear, Morgan, why

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:00  

is she more the same? Yeah,

 

Speaker 1  1:01  

similarly, she also, when she’s been confronted about what the changes would look like and what those changes would entail, especially regarding tax breaks, she has said, Well, we just have to, and that’s just not an answer. Saying, well, those are the constituents that they’re representing, so they’re just going to have to, but they haven’t been able to do it up until now. So what is, what is it that she’s going to be able to be able to do that’s going to be able to move that needle and the direction that she’s aiming for? And she can’t answer that. She gets wildly comfortable in her interviews. Adam,

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:28  

I saw you nodding your head. Adam, from Arizona, you agree?

 

Speaker 2  1:32  

I completely agree with that. Yeah. She seems very scripted. She has like, four or five answers that regardless of the question, she goes back to one of those five scripted answers and gives it, I was I’m from a middle class family. My My mother worked hard, and I remember her buying our first house, and I’m tired of scripted answers. Tell me what you feel and your ideas.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  1:56  

Gary, you even smiled during this last 90 seconds of a conversation. Did

 

Speaker 3  2:01  

you see that? That clip of her where she says, we’re gonna do big things, and then she loses track of where she is in her rhetoric, and then she goes, we’re, we’re gonna do things, because we’re gonna do big things, to do big things. And she just gets on that like a loop and loses her.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:22  

So we’ve keep going, right? I’ll just say

 

Speaker 3  2:25  

it’s a week that’s just that goes to what Morgan was saying, you know, and it’s a lot of rhetoric, and it’s a lot of scripted stuff, and sometimes it falls right apart.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  2:38  

I don’t like the way I asked that question. But I do want to stay with that, because I know this matters to some people. Both candidates argue that they are representing change, but one of them has to represent more change than the other. Which one of these two is the change candidate? In your opinion, Harris or Trump? Who’s the change candidate? Raise your hands if you think it’s Harris, 123, raise your hand if you think it’s Trump. I still don’t know everybody, almost everybody else, so I gotta How is Trump to change candidate when he was already president?

 

Speaker 2  3:16  

It’s a change from what we’ve had the past four years, and that we just talk about the guy that mentioned Trump’s playbook, but wait, I don’t even know what Kamala playbook would even look like, you know, yeah, but I don’t disagree with Brian either.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  3:34  

We have been with Hold on. We’ve been with Trump for nine years now. He’s been on the scene for nine years. How can he possibly represent change bill go ahead?

 

Speaker 4  3:44  

I think a fact that I want to point out is, as soon as COVID hit, there was one half of the middle class that was left in the dust. If you didn’t own an asset, if you were a renter, if you worked for a living, your life completely changed. And there’s a very real, deep sense of concern among those voters, I could say anecdotally, from people that I’ve met all over Nevada that are genuinely concerned, and they look back to a record that was in Trump’s time, and I think that they’re making a decision where it’s not easy for them, but it’s John

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  4:13  

from Pennsylvania. How can trump represent change when he’s been in in this yelling at us for nine years now, because

 

Speaker 2  4:21  

Trump was changed from eight years of Barack Obama. Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s third term. Kamal Harris will be Barack Obama’s fourth term.

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  4:31  

Danny, how does Trump represent change?

 

Speaker 5  4:33  

I think with him not having to deal with the pandemic, God forbid, I feel like he can do a lot more to change than if we had a pandemic. So

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  4:45  

Adam, I know you don’t like him, but which candidate represents change to you?

 

Speaker 6  4:49  

Donald Trump represents change. And I say it because last four years have been all Joe Biden and listen to Kamala. You don’t take it from me. She’ll say it on the news like she doesn’t. Like, disagree with anything Joe Biden’s done, and like, implies it’s gonna be more of the same. So like, if I look at my immediate term, what my immediate like Outlook is gonna be, and who’s gonna change that relative to what it is right now, at this very time, that’s Donald Trump, plain and simple. To me, it’s pretty black and white in my book.

 

{WIPE}

{07 Closing}

{TRT: 0:44}

 

Dr. Frank Luntz  0:00  

Okay, this has been awesome. This has been a great conversation, and I really appreciate it. It’s been an awful election, but these focus groups have been wonderful because you all have been wonderful, and I want to point out every one of you was respectful to each other. You went for eight minutes without me interrupting. Eight minutes going back and forth. None of you are rude, none of you are abusive. You don’t know each other, you never met each other. You’re from all across the country, and you handled yourself incredibly well. So I want to thank you for this conversation. I wish you a great night. I hope that things work out for the election, for what you’re seeking, and I hope that we all have a better 2025 than we had in 2024 and.