Pollster Frank Luntz told CNN host Kate Bolduan on Tuesday how mistaken “pundits” have been regarding voters’ feelings about former President Donald Trump.
Trump during a 2016 presidential debate suggested his opponent Hillary Clinton would “be in jail” if he was president, with Bolduan on “CNN News Central” playing a clip of the moment and asking Luntz about the significance of it. Luntz told her that voters appreciated Trump’s statement while “pundits really condemned him.” (RELATED: ‘Hillary Clinton Did … The Same Thing’: Fox Legal Analyst Says Trump Hush Money Case Held To ‘Different’ Standard)
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Pollster Frank Luntz Tells CNN Host How Wrong ‘Pundits’ Have Been About Voter Perception Of Trump pic.twitter.com/Jyfyaybgkb
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“Nobody expected Donald Trump to say that,” Luntz said. “And the pundits really condemned him [for] doing it. And our voters said, ‘Wait a minute. He’s holding her accountable. It’s about time that politicians are held accountable.’ That’s one of the great frustrations in America. That’s why we’re so angry because when you think politicians will say and do anything, and then actually do exactly the opposite of what they promise.”
Bolduan fired back at Luntz, noting that Trump was “kind of suggesting he would be like directing his Justice Department to go after a political opponent.” Luntz replied that her statement illustrates how pundits were misaligned with voters.
“And that’s exactly what the pundits said,” the pollster said. “And the voters said, ‘Uh uh,’ he’s actually going to do this. I want someone who’s that tough, who’s going to look me straight in the eye and the opposite was Barack Obama, looking [at] people and saying ‘I get you, I understand you, I appreciate you, I applaud you.’ Voters are looking for someone to speak to them, to look at them, to mean what they say, say what they mean and do what they promised to do.”
Luntz on Wednesday marveled at the closeness of Trump’s race with President Joe Biden in Minnesota, which the former president lost in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Biden is currently beating Trump by 3% in a two-way race in the state, according to the RealClearPolling average.
Clinton in April suggested Trump wants to murder his opponents.
“Putin does what [Trump] would like to do. Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists into exile, rule without any check or balance. That’s what Trump really wants,” she said. “And so we have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because in that world, he only sees strong men leaders. He sees Putin, he sees Xi, he sees Kim Jong Un in North Korea. Those are the people he is modeling himself after and we’ve been down this road in our, you know, world history. We sure don’t want to go down that again.”
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