Frank Luntz (photo, left), a Republican pollster, thinks Trump is better on issues, but his “persona” is driving voters to Harris (read story here).
He says, “If it’s about issues, Trump is much more likely to be successful. If it’s about attributes, Harris is much more likely to be successful, because quite frankly, people like her more than him.”
It’s true many people, including some Republicans, find Trump repulsive. But it’s not just his personality and behavior (assuming that’s what Luntz means by “persona”), but also his lack of character.
And if Trump has an advantage on issues, it’s based on lies. For example, he rails about “crime-infested cities,” but in fact violent crime has declined sharply in dozens of U.S. cities (see story here). And the immigrants he wants to deport are not only more law-abiding than citizens, but also vital to the economy.
But there’s no question that Kamala Harris’s sunny personality and the joyous vision she’s promoting are more appealing than Trump’s dystopian vision of America. If Lunz is saying Trump is off-putting, that’s clearly correct.
Ironically, two years ago in 2022, Luntz decried contemporary political discourse by saying, “The last time I saw people talking this way was fifth grade” (go to link here). One has to assume he was talking about Trump, who routinely denigrates all sorts of people with malicious language, such as describing American troops who died fighting tyranny as “suckers” and “losers.”
Luntz says, “Donald Trump should be winning based on those beliefs.” I’m not sure what “beliefs” he’s referring to, but I hope he doesn’t think what Trump has said about suspending the Constitution, what the Federalist Society believes about free speech, or Project 2025 “should” be put into practice.
I’d also like to ask Luntz whether he’s endorsing cozying up to dictators, dismantling NATO, and handing Ukraine to Putin. Does Luntz subscribe to Trump’s “belief” that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him?
I really can’t make out this guy Luntz. He conducts polls, interprets results, then advises Republican campaigns of what the numbers reveal. In this interview, he seems to be expressing his own policy preferences. That’s fine, he can do that, but it’s not polling or political strategy. It’s wishing for what his own polling data suggest a majority of voters don’t want.