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GOP pollster on Trump-Harris: ‘I haven’t seen anything like this’
https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/08/gop-pollster-on-trump-harris-i-havent-seen-anything-like-this.html
He's been called "The Nostradamus of pollsters."
https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/08/gop-pollster-on-trump-harris-i-havent-seen-anything-like-this.html
He's been called "The Nostradamus of pollsters."
The issues and the conditions favor Donald Trump.
I'm sorry, what issues are those? Abortion? Livable wages? Climate change? Corporate greed? Social safety nets? Or is the assumption still "R= good economy"
I came here to post exactly this. This line caused me to stop taking the entire article seriously.
The only thing working in Donald Trump's favor was that he was able to convince independent voters that Biden is too old to run again, and even that was only having limited success until that disastrous debate performance where Biden seemingly confirmed everything Trump was saying about his mental capacity. That's it. That's the only thing that had been going in his favor, and even then it was only significantly in his favor for a couple of weeks until Biden finally dropped out.
Once Biden dropped out, taking the issues about his age with him, Trump was exposed. Voters who were now able to see beyond Biden's age saw that Trump has nothing to offer them. Virtually everybody predicted what we're seeing, even if they didn't think it would happen this quickly.
Another thing this guy didn't bring up is Project 2025.
That is literally the worst 900 pages of policy to hit before an election in the history of the US. Expect the month of October to be a non-stop blitzkrieg of the attack ads for it featuring Trump giving his little keynote speech at the Heritage Foundation din din.
There was a policy document called "Fightback!" published by the Australian Liberal Party (who were in opposition at the time) ahead of the 1993 federal election. The Labor government was behind in the polls, but they ran a massive scare campaign about the deeply unpopular policies in Fightback and managed to win a historic 5th term with a slightly increased majority.
The lesson both major parties took from that election was to never release detailed policies in advance of an election, because you give your opponent time to attack every detail and put you on the defensive (and if you're defending, you're losing). Publishing Project 2025 before the election may well turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes they made, because it's given the Democrats the opportunity to get the news out about all the deeply unpopular things they want to do.
This is also a warning that even if Harris and the Democrats win this election Project 2025 isn't necessarily dead, and they may learn to hide it better next time. The majority of policies in Fightback did end up happening to some degree over the following 30 years.
All of that is true. I completely forgot about that, and it makes sense.
The only difference is that Project 2025 is about 1000 times more scary than Fightback.
He's a Republican operative. He's only going to try to argue that Trump ought to win but everything is topsy-turvy. I think the article is a useful read even if the guy is full of crap.
Actually… being a little charitable and assuming Luntz’s head isn’t just filled with wet newspapers here (which is maybe a little bit too charitable), we could say that maybe the issues he’s concerned with are, who’s going to give tax breaks to the rich people, who’s going to gut the federal agencies, who’s going to kneecap the IRS so it can’t go after rich tax cheats. Things like that that are highly of interest to this lumpy bad haircut criminal, his criminal friends, the criminals that run the media, and so on.
I think Trump is so bad that he will cause problems for even the people whose main political alignment is “who will stop making problems for me while I rape the working class and have peasant-hunting parties with all my criminal friends”. But I think a really surprising amount of the rich criminals somehow haven’t figured that out and are supporting Trump because they’re still all bent out of shape that Biden was raising their taxes and letting the FDA continue to exist and etc.
Well said.
Luntz isn't an idiot. He's a republican, but he's a keen political analyst and very savvy about political messaging. He's the person that advocated "climate change" over "global warming," for instance.
And, not for nothing, he literally partially blames his two strokes on not speaking out forcefully enough against Trump.
The pollster is kind of right - on paper the economy should be an issue in Trumps favour. We've just come out of a period of high inflation and people are feeling the cost of living. Immigration is also supposedly an issue that should be favouring Trump.
That's not to say that Trump has the answers - he does not - but in a conventional election cycle he would be in the stronger position as the "outsider" attacking the incumbents.
Yet instead the entire news cycle is dominated by Harris and Walz at the moment. Republicans are desperate for Trump to get back "on message" but instead he's flailing around as his ego can't take the Dems attack lines, biden dropping out and Harris apparent popularity.
So although the pollster is obviously biased as a Republican, I think he's right in the sense this not playing out like a conventional election.
Also, I have to say as an outside observer from the UK, the excitement around Harris reminds me of Obama's first election. Obama came from no where in the primaries and huge momentum built behind him as the hope candidate. Harris has emerged much later in the election cycle, and oddly she feels like the exciting unknown candidate even though she is Vice President. Yet it does feel like the momentum is with her and she drawing in people who have been otherwise alienated by the republican / democrat arguments over the last 4 years.
I have no idea if it'll carry on to election day. But I must say on a personal note, the more I see of Harris, the more I warm to her. I suspect a lot of voters will feel the same. Her humour, and warmth are in stark contrast to Trumps meanness and petty nastiness. I'm beginning to think Trump is not capable of beating Harris.
Harris has emerged much later in the election cycle, and oddly she feels like the exciting unknown candidate even though she is Vice President.
Every day I'm waiting to wake up and read about the fever finally breaking and the collective illusion shattering about this. But she also genuinely acts differently (better!) now than compared to only a few years ago, almost like she's been spending the time as VP away from the spotlight secretly taking public speaking classes or something.
I really hope this momentum carries.
I think it's her now being in this role, it has changed her, and she has risen to the occasion. I don't think we could have seen this from her ever before because she wasn't in this situation. But now she's here and she's ready
I came here to post exactly this. This line caused me to stop taking the entire article seriously.
For me it was “Poll” in the title. “Pollster” - even worse!
That's basically it. R blames inflation on Biden et al even though the US fared much better than most other nations. That is a tough nut to crack because 'better than most' does not put food on the table. Most voters aren't shrewdly logical so in a way that opinion is right as much as I hate to say it.
In reality Harris will continue Biden's strong economic performance with improvements already promised like bans on price gouging, and all her other strong issues are gravy.
I would assume he is referring to the issues people rank as most important in polls. The economy is pretty much permanently at the top of that list, and a lot of polls put immigration at number 2, presumably because right wing media has been working overtime to make it an issue.
Now, for smart, well informed voters who are thinking things through logically, these aren't big advantages for Trump. But that's not most voters (as evidenced by the fact that Trump's in even in this race).
The harsh reality is, when people feel like the economy is going well, they tend to support the incumbent, and when they feel it's bad, they tend to blame the incumbent. Inflation may be slowing, but prices haven't gone back down to where they were, so things don't feel better than when inflation was high.
If the GOP candidate was someone younger who was charismatic and didn't have a massive amount of baggage, someone who was smart enough to run on a focused economic message instead of rambling about electric cars, crowd sizes and not understanding race, I would bet that the polls would look very different right now.
That said, I think he's being too dismissive of other issues like abortion, NATO, and democracy. But in all fairness, this is from a soundbite, not a thesis statement, he's almost certainly not arguing that there are literally no issues which favor Harris. And he might be lumping some things like project 2025 and Trump's threat to democracy in with "attributes" such as Trump's age and criminal behavior.
The harsh reality is, when people feel like the economy is going well, they tend to support the incumbent, and when they feel it's bad, they tend to blame the incumbent.
This is one hundred percent true, but let's not forget: thanks to Biden stepping down we have a situation where Harris has (so far) managed to Jedi Mind Trick everyone into thinking she's not really attached to Biden but is a fresh, new candidate. It's uncertain how long the illusion will last, but provided it does it's possible for her to avoid blame sticking to her the same way.
Inflation may be slowing, but prices haven't gone back down to where they were, so things don't feel better than when inflation was high.
They never will. Lower inflation means that prices are rising at a slower rate now, but still rising. Prices going down would be deflation, which most economic theory says would be a complete disaster.
That is all true, but when it comes to how most people vote, it isn't about sound economic theory, it's about perceptions, expectations and emotions. Prices aren't likely to drop back down to where they were 4-5 years ago. But even if they remain relatively stable, it will probably take some time for people to think of the current prices as normal and not inflated.
The only way forward is to raise wages to match the new prices. And then hopefully try to prevent undue inflation in the future
He's a GOP pollster, he has to believe this or he'd be a Democratic pollster. You don't have to believe it, though.
Basically immigration and the economy.
When framed vaguely in polls, respondents tend to lean right on those issues. Especially the racists with immigration.
Blows my mind cuz the markets do better under Dems almost always.
you have to think like an undecided voter
"nyeeeeeeeeeeeh me feel bad thing me life worse than me think supposed. me throw the bums out and put in people that caused problem heehoo."
CONDITIONS, not ISSUES.
Luntz, who’s been called “The Nostradamus of pollsters”
Absolutely nobody has ever said this. Luntz is a partisan hack and always has been
It may not have been intended as a compliment. Nostradamus was super vague and only right about half the time anyway.
he was quite the successful partisan hack. he created very precise language for the GOP to spout their evil nonsense in a way that more people could swallow.
Old McOrange being unhinged and uncontrollable changed that a lot, the euphemisms and dog whistles we thrown away. and now they're paying the price.
They’re going to be in for a surprise when they realise they’ll never win another election in their current form.
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