'The public will turn against you': Top GOP pollster reveals major 'opportunity' for Dems
During recent town hall meetings, Republican members of Congress have been faced with angry constituents who are particularly upset about President Donald Trump's mass layoffs of federal workers. One Republican pollster thinks Democrats may be able to exploit this anger in the 2026 midterms — if they have a disciplined message.
In a Monday interview on CNN, Frank Luntz — a Republican messaging expert who regularly conducts focus groups with swing voters — noted that heated town hall appearances can sometimes be a harbinger of whether the opposition will make big gains in the next midterm election. He mentioned the 2010 Tea Party wave election and the 2018 "Blue Wave" during Trump's first term as examples. But he said that Democrats should keep in mind that voters' anger isn't with Trump's agenda per se, but rather his execution.
"I look at this simply as an indication, but I want to confirm one thing for you right now, the focus groups that we do every single week are loud, they're boisterous and they will applaud the president for his agenda and condemn him for the way that he carries it out," Luntz said. "And this is the kind of thing that someone should be telling Elon Musk right now."
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Luntz stressed that his focus groups generally approve of the idea of "cutting waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement [and] corruption" but "not out of meanness." Rather, he said efficiency measures should be done "out of respect and appreciation for hardworking taxpayers" whereas the administration's current methods have been viewed as a form of "revenge."
"Do it for the right reasons, and the public will endorse you. But do it out of anger and do it out of a desire to get even, the public will turn against you, and that is what is beginning to happen," Luntz continued. "It's just the beginning of it. but it's starting to happen across the country."
The pollster and messaging expert warned Democrats against embracing 2017-era "resistance" messaging, and pointed out that Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, so swing voters aren't ready to fully abandon him. He opined that voters "see the politicization" of messaging that doesn't prioritize "the genuine health and safety and well-being of the American people."
"These Democrats who proudly proclaim that they're the resistance, not they're not helping their party. in fact, they're helping their party fail. They're causing the party to focus on the wrong issues, in the wrong language, in the wrong way," he said. "I know the new senator from Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, she's not one of those Democrats. And so I'm going to be listening to her language, her messaging at the end of the State of the Union, because that will tell me whether Democrats really not just understand, but can take advantage of this opportunity that the Trump administration has left them."
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