S4 Ep39: Former Hillary Voters for Trump (with Amy Walter)
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to new Trump voters, I want to explain why I think it is so important that we understand this group of people. Because we spend a lot of time on this show talking about former Trump voters who aren't going to vote for him again. And I know that's always an uplifting listen, but that is not the whole and totality of the voters that we are dealing with this cycle. Because the fact is, Biden is

still losing by many accounts. And it's been a while since we've checked in with voters who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and are now giving Donald Trump a fresh look. And so while that might be a little harder to listen to, that's what we're going to do here today, because it is important to understand and listen. Specifically, we're going to listen to Hispanic voters as a case study for this particular group.

But one caveat I want to make, this show is coming out after the first presidential debate on June 27th, but we taped it beforehand, so that will not be contextualized in this show. My guest today is part of the five-timer club. It's not a real club, but Amy Walter. Amy Walter, my good friend. She is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and host of the great podcast for Cook subscribers, The Odd Years, which I have also done. Amy, thank you for being here. You're the best.

So glad to be here. I get the five-time jacket, right? Right, yeah. Yeah. Afterward, I'll send you my size and everything, and you can just ship me one. That'd be great. We'll get that right to you. Yeah. Maybe you get another mug is what you get. I like my mug. It's a beautiful blue. It's a very nice shade of blue, isn't it? It is. It's a robin's egg, maybe. Blue, perhaps? Yeah, it is.

Okay, Amy, you are out with some new swing state polling over at Cook. So give us a quick rundown of what you're learning about the double haters, which is something we talk about on this show all the time. Like, who are they and what are they prioritizing this election? Indeed. So this is a really cool project.

that we started this year. We're partnering with Democratic polling firm, GS Strategies, Democratic firm, BSG. And we went into those seven swing states. So the six everybody talks about, plus North Carolina, taking a look at

at voter attitudes in those states. And this week, we dug into, as you pointed out, the sort of uncommitted voters or the ones that maybe are a little more fluid. So double haters. We looked also at people who were potentially defecting from Biden. Those are people who are saying, you know, I'm thinking about voting third party. Maybe they are voting third party, as well as those who are taking a look at Donald Trump or just sitting on the fence with Biden.

And then looking at some RFK voters. Now, a lot of these voters, Sarah, as you appreciate, you can be an RFK and a double hater and a Biden effector, right? It's not that you fit into one nice and neat category. But the thing about the double haters that I found really fascinating, not surprisingly, like all

almost all voters, these guys are pessimistic about the economy, but they are way down. I mean, way down on Biden's handling of it. I think his disapproval rating on the economy among those voters was like 80 or 84 percent. So this isn't even in the realm of, yeah, we think maybe he could kind of pull this out on the economy.

But they do think that Biden looks out for people like them. So it helps explain

If you've watched any of Joe Biden's ads recently, he talks a lot about Trump's only looking out for himself. Democrats, Biden, we're looking out for you. OK, the other thing is, this is really the only group besides Democrats who say they are more worried about Trump's temperament than they're worried about Biden's age. Now, it's not a huge difference.

But it's about a four or five point swing from where most voters are. Most voters, you say, are you worried about Biden's age? Are you worried about Trump's temperament? And they pick age. And we had a three point scale. OK, do you like Trump and his policies? Do you like his policies, but not like him personally? Do you dislike both? And this group, I think two thirds of them were dislike both. I mean, there's a reason we call them double haters, but the character issues.

The legal issues are going to be a hang up for them, which explains who the Biden team was probably talking to in this most recent ad where they show all the pictures of him in court and the felonies. Those double haters could be swayed by that message. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, look, we can get into more of this because there's a lot in there and some of it overlaps with what we heard in this group. Yes.

The age was one of the big factors. I mean, they just talked about it all the time. And, you know, ain't no ad Joe Biden can put out that's going to solve that problem. Yeah, and let's be clear. It's not like the double haters think, oh, whatever, it's no big deal that he's old. It's just that...

If forced to choose, slightly more of them would say, you make me choose which is the worst, temperament a little bit worse than age. Right. Okay. So like I mentioned at the top, one of the most notable groups moving towards Donald Trump since the last election are Hispanic voters. Like there has just been a full-

fledged freak out, I would say, on the Democratic side, trying to figure out what is happening, particularly with Hispanics and then also with Black men. But Hispanics, because they have been a pretty reliable demographic voting group, even though as a demographic voting group, they represent many, many demographics within the Hispanic demographic.

It's tough for the Democrats to see this level of slide. But so for this group, we talked to Hispanic Clinton Biden voters who are now leaning toward Trump. So everybody in this group has voted in at least two presidential elections and they've always gone Democrat. And it was really interesting to hear them explain why. But I'm going to start with how they thought things were going in the country, because this is pretty essential to why they're voting the way they were. Let's listen.

People either are doing better financially in terms of like their salary, but because inflation is so high that you're still struggling. Like I've done the best I've ever had financially. And I always felt like, oh, when I'm at this certain point, I'll be good. And I'm at that certain point and things are not as good as they could be.

as a licensed psychologist in the state of California, I'm bound by law to affirm people, kids, whatever gender identity they identify as. And the job of a psychologist and just clinical psychology as a sector is compromised because our job is to question, to inquire, and to investigate people's mental health. And so a law that is going to make me obliged to just affirm whatever my client

is telling me is going on in their lives defeats the purpose of my practice. So that's going to be a significant happiness why I'm deciding to even vote for Trump this time around after being part of the Democratic Party for the past two elections. As a professional, that's something that I don't support. Well, over here in Chicago, a lot of schools have closed and they're overcrowded.

Jail systems are overcrowded. The jails have better food than actual schools. I volunteer in both of my kids' schools since they've been little to now. And I saw the biggest change of how they're crowding kids in schools, how they're having less teachers, how they're having a lot of people that can come in and be with your children and not do a background check at all.

I also saw how the population in homelessness, like no one is helping here. And then they brought a whole bunch of immigrants here with added on top of this. And it's just crime is over here. It's already bad and it's getting overpopulated over here.

a lot of reason why a lot of people tended to like Trump before, which I didn't like before, but he's a businessman and he seemed to run the country in a business fashion where he, you know, had treaties going on. Him and Putin were talking. The Middle East had this peace agreement. There was just like so many things that I feel he was doing in a businessman perspective that

these politicians that are groomed, especially the Democratic Party, you know, they start these wars that have nothing to do with nothing but these politicians making money. I mean, I don't know what's going on with Biden, but if I can be completely honest, I think he's got Alzheimer's or dementia and he needs to go to an old age home. There's something not right with him. He's losing his

his whereabouts. And that's what upsets me the most is that nobody's stepping in and doing the right thing. It's like, what is going on with this man? He lingers off during speeches. He doesn't know what he's saying. And here he is going for another election. Like, are you kidding me? Okay. So Biden

Biden won the Hispanic vote by 24 points in 2020, according to an average of a lot of the post-election surveys. And according to an average of the recent crosstabs going up to April, that lead is down to 11 points. And I'm just going to shout out Adam Carlson, who's a former pollster who aggregates across these crosstabs and helped us out with that research.

So, Amy, as you've been looking at things in recent years, why do you think the Democratic Party has been sliding with Black and Hispanic voters? And do you think it's more of like a natural shift or is it something Republicans are doing well or Democrats are doing poorly? These are all the questions I think we're going to be digging real deep into for the next X number of years. It's not going to end after this election. Two things that I thought were really interesting, especially about the folks that you picked out.

it wasn't just one thing that they chose right as why they were upset about things i mean listen inflation and the economy was a piece of it but it wasn't all the price of stuff is too much the

That person you heard, for example, who talked about the gender-affirming care, wasn't he the guy who said, oh, I've been listening to Turning Point? He was. So clearly he's getting into that more conservative world through that venue. You have immigration on there, but specifically what's going on on the border, frustration about what's going on in kids' schools. What?

What was also interesting to me, Sarah, and it kind of explains a little bit about what this shift is about, the number of those voters who said, yeah, I supported Biden because he was Obama's vice president, right? Like we liked Obama. He was a good guy. So I picked Biden because he worked with Obama. So these voters were with you for certain reasons and for certain people or personalities, but they weren't there necessarily for the party. And that to me was the other thing that if you're a Democrat listening to this, you're

you should feel very unsettled, which is they couldn't really tell you what the Democratic Party is, right? Like, what is the Democratic Party? What do they stand for? What do they do? I mean, an abortion that Democrats were on the right side for them. But other than that,

We've seen for years and years and years that some of the most conservative voters of color were still voting for Democrats. White conservatives left the Democrats a long, long, long time ago.

and now ideologically conservative voters of color. It shouldn't be surprising that they're also saying, well, wait a minute, what am I, I'm in the wrong party, right? Ideologically, I'm much more of a Republican. But I do think that, you know, this idea that these voters are supposed to stick with Democrats is what has both gotten Democrats in trouble, this idea that they're going to be with us no matter what, because they always have been,

And these voters are also coming to this realization. Remember, Sarah, when like the South started turning or when Republicans started winning in sort of rural southern areas that had been going Democrat forever and ever, they were like, well, my my whole family was Democrat. So I just assumed that we're we're a Democrat family. Like, that's what you do. And then one day I said, well, wait a minute.

I'm not a Democrat. Yeah. And maybe came Reagan Democrats first, right? Maybe. That's right. They were like, I'm a Reagan Democrat. And pretty soon they were like, yeah, I'm just a Republican. I'm just a Republican. Right. Like this party is not my party. But you do start to wonder, because Biden is such a piece of this conversation about how old he is, if the movement would be as significant with a different Democrat.

Yeah, that's a great question. It's hard not to, and I don't want to extrapolate too hard from one group. But I will say, I get emails a lot from people who are like, at the live shows, sometimes people come up to me and say, you know, the reason that everybody talks about Joe Biden's age is because you people in the media, which I'm still getting used to being people seeing me as the media, but whatever, you people in the media are always talking about Joe Biden's age.

And I'm like, no, it's reverse. I do these focus groups constantly. And it is not just Republicans. Yes, the Republicans are meaner. They say like he has dementia. But the Democrats, God.

constantly talk about his age. And they say things like, every time he talks, I get nervous. And you hear this woman in response to how are things going in the country went on a long rant about Joe Biden's age. Her point was just like, I don't think things are good. I don't think they're under control because we have somebody in charge who I don't think is competent. And so we heard a lot in this group about that. And so like I said, I don't want to extrapolate from a but,

There is no doubt that there are a ton of people who are saying things like, you know,

I always voted for the Democrats because I sort of thought they were for the people. They were better to people. And I think Trump's kind of a bully and kind of a jerk, but also I think he's in better shape. I think he's a businessman who could still run this country. And Joe Biden's tool, like that is their frame. That is how they were making this choice. Absolutely. One guy also said, look, you know, now I'm at this age where, right, I got a family and I just need to look out for like,

Look out for myself.

Yep. All right. I'll take that. That's what we heard. That is what we heard. Okay, look, we asked these voters at the top why they didn't vote for Trump the last two times. I think this informs the conversation we're just happening and then why they're more open to him this time. Because like, think about this. These are people who for the last two elections, Trump was on the ballot and they voted against him. So like, they've had a lot of time to absorb Trump and they've gotten more favorable toward him, not less. So let's listen. I didn't vote for him the first time. It was more like a peer pressure thing, I'll be honest.

But I've gotten to know myself and my own identity and what more would I align with and like I align more with Trump. Even the idea of saying that you care about America, like Biden is not doing that. So that's why I would vote for him now.

I mean, before, I think the way I looked at him, especially being a New Yorker, I just felt like he didn't have public speaking. I felt like he was, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say an elite, but he was born into money and very concerned with how he would or could connect with us as civilians or other Americans that were not born into money. And in the four years that he served,

I felt did a very good job. Again, he put his foot in his mouth many times and he was embarrassing to listen to during his speeches, but in terms of what he did, um,

It was very commendable, you know, and I'm sure there's bigger factors, but our gas was very low. Again, he had peace treaties. There was no war. There was no talks of war. He invested very well as a businessman into the United States that Biden, unfortunately, has really done nothing to compare.

And again, you know, the Democratic Party, to a certain extent, you're giving money to other countries, but you're not taking care of the places that we need. - It's really come to that point of like, lesser of two evils, like which person is gonna do less damage, which person is gonna help more. And it's a shame that we've come to this point that we have to really make the decision between either one of these two parties. I'm almost like embarrassed by like,

the hardcore democrats like i used to be like oh my god like these hardcore republicans are too much it's like how could somebody like be like that and not like feel shameful and then like some of these hardcore democrats are like even worse i don't know i just don't see our country getting better with another four years of biden and it's like if i'm gonna pick one i might as well pick one that i believe is going to help me maximize myself

because I saw Trump as a bully. He used to call, you know, he still does call people names. I mean, there's no respect for authority. And that kind of really turned me off because I saw him like arrogant and

I just didn't like that. So I kind of just voted for whoever was available. This time around, it's kind of like, and I'm in agreement, I think, unfortunately, Biden is too old. And I think it's time for him to step down. And my fear is if he wins and something happens to him, the next one in command is Kamala. And unfortunately, she's not ready for that.

So I have to look at, you know, well, the only other option we have is Trump. There's really nothing else. So I prefer him that at least he has a strong character and will take this country to maybe a better direction.

I fought people for voting for Trump and people were arguing with me and I'm saying to myself, what the heck didn't I know? What didn't I see? It's disappointing because I feel like now we're left with Trump. I don't think it would be my choice if we didn't have Biden. I really don't. But at the point where, you know, the way he showed himself, like the things that happened at the White House, things that were unprecedented, I honestly feel that he pushed us. You know, we need a reset.

Biden is not a reset. So I have to go to Trump. That reset point, right? That was so important. Right. Because you know what it's like when people are in the mood for a change. And what's weird is that Trump, for these people, despite the fact that he's been president before and they voted against him, represents change in this moment. Tell me your reaction to hearing from those guys.

That's exactly what I thought, too, that he is both change and more of the same. Right. And so just as we discussed earlier, like if Democrats had nominated somebody else, how would these voters have been reacting? Because so much of their frustration is about Biden.

Biden's age. And the other is, had there been another kind of Republican, how would they have responded to it? Would they see this as, oh, wow, this is a fresh break. We need something different. We can't keep having these same old guys. I want somebody without the baggage. But it is quite remarkable. He has the track record that they like, and they're willing to look beyond the

at least right now, they're willing to look beyond the stuff that they didn't like about him because of the track record, right? Whereas maybe in 2016, and I think one of them did say that, kept talking about the wall and Mexicans and I'm Mexican and I just, I couldn't. And now it's not shocking, number one. Oh, yes. And number two, Joe Biden's talking about the wall and immigration restrictions and, you know,

Suddenly, this guy isn't as much of an outlier.

Yeah, I think that's right. And also just on this nostalgia advantage that Trump has, right, where people really remember his economy is very robust. They just do. And you wrote this, that there was a series of polls where more people rate Trump's presidency as being good than bad. So more people thought it was good than bad, even though his approval rating was underwater for basically his entire presidency, right? Like those two things don't seem to match up. So why do you think voters

in the polling and in the focus groups seem to like Trump more or hate him less than they used to. Although I got to say, you just said something that maybe you can expound on this about they got used to it, which to me, I cannot tell you how important this is. I do think there are a couple of things. One is throughout his presidency, the lens through which so many people viewed Trump and the lens through which I think the media covered him was his personality. And

And now they are seeing him through the presidency rather than the personality, right? Like what happened when he was president? Oh, ground beef didn't cost this much. Oh, I wasn't priced out of my apartment. I wasn't worried about all these people coming across the border or people in my city and hearing these stories about what's going on with all these migrants. So that part, I think, has benefited Trump a lot.

The other piece is, I say this all the time, like you couldn't in the time between 2017 and 2020, and let's face it, probably early into 2021, you could not be anywhere on this earth, including probably in an underwater cave and not hear about Donald Trump, right? Like, or not have him somewhere in your grill. He was everywhere. And

He is not everywhere because he's not the president. And normal people, after what they went through during the Trump era, this is nothing. He's not in their face. And to me, this has been the absolute biggest political challenge for Democrats and for Biden. They succeeded when Trump was the center of the universe and they could make the case that we are the anti-Trump party.

And there were more anti-Trump voters than pro-Trump voters in those key states, in those key races that worked. Now trying to put an anti-Trump coalition together when Trump is not the center of the universe, the way he was when he was president, is really, really hard. He's not in charge anymore. And

Yeah, it worked in 2022. But I think what really helped in 2022, besides the fact that Biden wasn't on the ticket, was that, yes, abortion was part of the story. And the Republican candidates themselves were not particularly skilled.

So the skilled ones like Brian Kemp, right? He did well. Glenn Youngkin, he won. But no, Carrie Lake did not. Dr. Oz did not.

Yeah. So I have two thoughts on this that I want to hit before we go to a word from our sponsor. One is this point about Trump not being in people's faces. The best thing that ever happened to Trump was getting kicked off Twitter. The best thing that's going to happen to Trump in this debate is them cutting off his microphone. The best thing that happened to Trump was the news networks deciding to stop covering his rallies wall to wall because he's not new. He says-

clinically insane things on Truth Social a hundred times a day and retweets Nazis or weirdos. It's so bananas, the stuff happening over on Truth Social, and no one sees it but us because we are clocking Truth Social. No one else is. I don't think I've ever heard a person in a focus group in the last year be like, oh, something Trump said on Truth Social. It just doesn't compute. And so it's hard to explain to people, and I assume if you are listening to this podcast, you are deeply, deeply

political nerd. It is hard to explain how,

much that stuff is happening in a vacuum that the average voter is not connected to at all. On the other candidates, your Blake Masters, your Herschel Walkers, but even Mark Robinson this time around in North Carolina, right? This is the guy we did an episode about a few episodes ago, the Holocaust denier, super crazy person, extreme on abortion, just like Blake Masters was just like Carrie Lake was.

I think that people miss a couple things. So right now, if you look at the polling, the Senate candidates, the Democratic Senate candidates are doing better than Biden in most of the swing states, like Ruben Gallego in Arizona, just all of them, Pennsylvania. Your Senate candidates are outperforming Biden right now. The polling is split. Donald Trump is seen as a social moderate. I hammer this home all the time. They were seen as abortion extremists. And there's this weird thing happening where I think that

Trump for voters, because he's a celebrity, he seems much more normal to them than Mark Robinson. Like Trump may dine with Nick Fuentes and Kanye and have that be like a weird anti-Semitic dinner to have, yet you can't hang it on him the way you can a Mark Robinson. And

They're so crazy, they almost normalize Trump in these voters' eyes. Like, Trump does not seem on the most extreme side of the spectrum now compared to the other Republicans who have been elected subsequently in his image. You said this in one of your other podcasts, and I totally, totally agree with you on this. And I think it's also why on the abortion issue this year—

it is going to be easier for Democrats to win down ballot races on the issue than against Trump. And I think one of these voters even said, yeah, I don't really know where Trump is on abortion, right? Like, they know all the stories. They've been watching and hearing and reading about all the different laws in different states. Maybe it happened in their state, but they

They are not attaching it to Donald Trump. And I do think there is something that for, again, it's not a huge segment of voters, but there are going to be voters who say, Mark Robinson is way too out there for me, but I'm totally voting for Trump. Yeah. Right? So they can vote for...

a moderate Democrat for governor and then go vote for Trump for president. It doesn't seem incongruous. I think you are absolutely right about that. And that's where you're going to see, as I said, an abortion. And it's why Democrats are talking about it a lot. But are the voters that you talk to in this focus group,

Are they going to vote for a down ballot Republican? I don't know. I'm not sure either. And many of them had not voted in the midterms, which is like when Trump isn't on the ballot, like in 2022, right? Like these off-year elections...

are being helped by the fact that a lot of these white, college-educated suburban voters are being politically realigned out of the Republican Party. They don't want to vote for these weirdos and they'll happily vote for a moderate Dem. Whereas when Trump is on the ballot in a presidential, a bunch of these voters who might sort of be nominally Democrats in some other races, they're voting for Trump. We haven't talked as much this time around the enthusiasm gap, but you do have to wonder if Trump's able to

turn out the pro-Trump coalition and the anti-Trump coalition just isn't as enthusiastic as it was in 2020, like that can be your margin too. Okay, we got to pay some bills with a word from our sponsor. This podcast is supported by IPVanish VPN. If you care about the security of your online activity, the easiest way to protect yourself is with IPVanish.

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Okay. Now, I do want to get into how this group talked about immigration. The state of the border is a consistently large complaint with swing voters, and the

One of the top things that we hear they don't like about Joe Biden and his policies. Now, he did recently come out with executive orders. One was to deny asylum to asylum seekers who've tried to cross the border illegally when the average number of daily crossings is over 2,500, which is meant to make the volume of asylum claims easier to process. And then there's one that allows U.S. citizens, spouses, and children who are here illegally to work in the U.S. legally.

Let's listen to how the group talked about these and about immigration more broadly, starting with what they thought of his second order. The second executive action you mentioned, it sounds good to me. It's still not going to change anything for me as far as who I'm voting for, but I just hear it now from you. So my thoughts on those two executive orders is I can get behind the second one. Still not going to change anything for me, though.

I think a little too late from somebody that has no merit, if that makes sense. You know, this is voting time. Of course he's going to do something to make it look like he's doing something, but it's too late.

One of the main things that rubbed me the wrong way with Trump was him constantly talking about immigrants and building a wall. And I felt it was majorly extreme because America was founded on immigrants. We're all immigrants, unless you're an American Indian, we're all immigrants, whether it's first, second, third generation, whatever it may be. And I was

rubbed the wrong way with it, but also Biden really rubbed me the wrong way with how, you know, he just opened the gates. And I think we went from one extreme to the other. And now

how do you undo what Biden did? You know, the country was already stressed out. We're already in a recession. You have people that obviously are fleeing countries that probably were fleeing for their lives. And so I'm extremely compassionate for them, but it's a very touchy, sensitive matter. And I think out of respect for everybody involved, there needed to be a solid plan. We come from immigrant backgrounds. So at first, you know, I thought,

Of course, like, why would you not want to open the border? Like, these are the most hardworking people. They're going to pay taxes. My parents were immigrants. I'm seeing the good people coming in. But it's like, you don't want an open border. I don't think that Biden did the right thing with that. I think that the border should be more strict. And if you look at other countries, they're very strict with their borders and who they let in the country and who they don't let in.

So I think that until we get these child trafficking numbers and these drug numbers down, I don't think that we should be open. What a lot of these candidates do is they know they have their vote from their party and they try to combat the other person by doing the complete opposite because they want to keep that vote. And I feel like that's what Biden did. You know, Trump came in with

with fists and came in with a strong hammer, and now Biden is the complete opposite. And it's tough because I was once an illegal immigrant myself. And it's just unfortunate because as we go along, I wish there was a middle party instead of we have to be one or the other.

It's a little bit like Biden's in the sour spot, right? Because it's like for a lot of them, it was like too little, too late. And for other ones for whom they liked it, it was like, well, now he's the same as Trump. So doesn't matter. Yeah. And actually, you know what? People right now who are listening to this are like screaming at their car stereos saying, but Trump is planning mass deportations. And so we asked them about that. Here's what they said.

So if you're going to a home at 5:30 and you're wrecking a dinner of a family who's got to work the next day and the kid's got to school the next day, and you're going about this operation that Trump is proposing this way, to me that doesn't sit right at all and I would not support it. If you're talking about militarizing the deportation process

at the border or if you want to put these forces at the border and you want to deal with people at the border that's perfectly fine but to go into people's homes who have been here for years you know this could be a worker that is going to go do something for society tomorrow and all of a sudden is is in handcuffs on a thursday night and that's the way to round up people and

and clean it up or use whatever phrase you want to do to deal with this problem. I wouldn't like that at all and I would not support that. - We're under Biden's administration now and I've personally seen ICE here in military trucks or whatever they're called and they do checkpoints here and it's already happening.

i do have some friends who are illegal and like they've been here for i don't even know how many years decades um so if that were to happen i mean i know for him when trump was in office it was very traumatic for him he constantly thought he was going to be deported and this is like a blue collar working professional so yeah it would it does change my stance a little bit

as far as ripping them away and just going about it. Like, I remember the whole camp situation. I don't want that to happen. Like, I heard crazy cases of kids getting raped in there or people missing, kids and parents not together. They're abducted. Like, that's what I've heard. And that's not what I want to happen. I don't want that.

All right. So I have found the White House's sort of flat-footed approach to immigration sort of maddening through the Biden administration. I'm sort of a more immigrant, more better kind of person. But just on the politics of it, like...

The consensus is that being hawkish on the border, but showing compassion to people here that don't know any other country, like it is where people are. I feel like we heard that clear. Absolutely. Why do you think Biden world didn't sort of stake that position out a couple of years ago? And how bad do you think it's going to hurt him this election cycle? Yeah, I mean, it was quite remarkable because I've probably talked to the same people you have, Sarah, about this who say, look,

Once these voters who are skeptical of Biden, maybe voted for Biden in 2020, once they learn about what Trump is planning to do, they're going to come home.

Now, as you point out, this is just a this is one group. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves saying, oh, it's not going to work because these six people didn't agree with it. But I do think what is so telling about so many of the voters who are undecided right now or who are softly supporting one candidate or the other, what they share in common is a deep cynicism of the entire process. Right. And of the system.

And so who's doing what for political reasons? Who's doing what just to satisfy their base? I mean, the cynicism about this is significant. And so instead of it, like, shocking people into, oh, whoa, it's like, well...

you know, he's saying that, but is that really what's going to happen? And I don't know that it's as powerful of a deterrent for these voters. We've also seen in polling, rather than these focus groups, people have become, again, not surprisingly, but they've become less concerned

down on the idea of deportations, is the other way to say it. So they are more open to the idea of mass deportation now than they were four years ago. The way that one voter summed it up where he's like, yeah, a family sitting down to dinner and ice comes barging through the door, that is definitely one way that people are going to see this and go, okay, this feels like a police state and don't like that at all.

There are others who are going to say, we've got a lot of people here illegally. And the idea of just telling those people who are at the border to go and to have maybe a more militarized force doing that doesn't seem that scary.

Yeah, I've got like a half-baked theory on this that comes from the old school sort of they take Trump seriously but not literally on a lot of this stuff. And some of it comes from the fact that he talked a lot about building a wall going into 2016. He didn't build a wall. And so people have this sense of,

Well, Trump's rhetoric is extreme. But what I take from that is that he's going to take this problem seriously, but he's not actually going to do the crazy stuff like busting into somebody's house. He was there before and nobody saw that happen. And so like there's like a I take him seriously on his word. He's going to do something about immigration, but not literally that he's going to have camps. It's like abortion, right, where they're like, yeah.

don't know what he says about it, but like that guy paid for some abortions and like is no sexual morality whatsoever. And like, there's no part of me that thinks he's going to really do this, you know, maybe one of those weirdo Republicans that I never voted for before, but not Trump. And the fact that they aren't giving Biden credit for being tougher on it now. I mean, I think that goes hand in hand with this, which is we've known it's a problem for a long time.

And yet it's only now five months before the election that the president says, oh, OK, we need to do something about it. To them, I wrote this down. One woman said literally it's too late. He messed it up too much. Yeah. And so it's like you're not getting credit for doing the buckling down on the border piece anymore.

And these voters, at least, didn't feel like, oh, even the prospect of Trump having a more militarized approach to deportation was not enough for them to say, that's kind of a bridge too far for me.

So it's the worst of both worlds for Biden on this issue. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'll just go back to something you said about, because I do want to be clear when I say like, you don't want to extrapolate too much from one group. What I don't want to do is say, this is how all Hispanic voters are thinking. Correct. What I do want to say is that,

If people are wondering why there is a slide with Hispanic voters and what those voters who are starting to look at Trump sound like and why, I think this is a pretty good representation of how those voters might talk about this. I will say this. There were a lot of nuances in this conversation for people who could listen to the entire conversation.

that you can't get in, obviously, just the clips. And I do think that's how people view this. It is a very complicated issue. There was a lot of empathy and insight in those voters.

in the way that they were thinking about it. And at the same time, what they also knew was this is untenable, what is happening. And there has to be a solution to this. And I don't think this president has done it. And he's kind of doing it at the last minute. And it feels political and they're cynical about it.

But at the same time, these are not folks who are going to be chanting, let's build more walls, right? Yay, build the wall, get rid of everybody. Yeah, no, and I'm glad you said that about nuance. This conversation was an incredibly thoughtful conversation. And here's like another half-baked theory of mine.

But you listen to a lot of these voters and they are much closer to the immigration issue. Like they were talking more about seeing the problems of illegal immigration where they were. And I do wonder, right, if you're in some of these communities, like a 70-year-old white voter living in the wow counties in Wisconsin, they may say they care about immigration, but they do not live with immigrants.

I don't even want to say the consequences exactly, but like they're not seeing it happen. Whereas a lot of these voters felt very close to it, like they were seeing it happen. And I think that they saw it as a problem. Like this is disruptive. It's causing issues, even though I know America is a country based on immigration and we, my family immigrated here. I think right now it's causing too many problems. That's right. I mean, the guy said, I came here not legally, right? He didn't talk about his full story, but

So it's not only the impact that it's having perhaps in their communities, but their own personal experiences. This is not theoretical to them. And again, if I took anything away from these voters, which is what we know, Sarah, about swing voters in general,

they are incredibly practical, right? They don't live in the world of theory. They don't go and listen to, sorry, 35 political podcasts a week and go and dissect every single show about politics. They are living their lives. There are some things that they just tune out. And a lot of the other stuff, they just can't figure out why politicians can't

solve the most obvious problem. So there is a practicality piece to this that I think that's what they're looking for, right? There's a problem. They want it to be solved. They wish it weren't Biden or Trump. They wish they had another choice. But as one of them said, they're like, this is what we have. So I got to make a choice based on what we have in front of us.

Yeah, which this goes back to sort of your earlier question about whether these are long-term Republicans. Like, we should be clear, they did not like the choice of Trump. Almost nobody was like affirmatively in his camp. It was more like, I'm going to take him. It's just they were breaking his way.

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Now, I want to wrap up with a bit of talk about the pair of criminal convictions that we got in the last month or so. Let's listen to what these voters said about Hunter Biden's conviction on federal gun charges. And then we will listen to what they said about Trump's conviction. This first guy is answering how this made him feel about the criminal justice system. A little better, just because the law is not above anyone, so...

a son for a son. That's how I felt. So Trump had to go and had to get in trouble. So of course they have to let Hunter get in trouble, even though he's guilty, but I'm just saying the show of a son for a son. That's how I felt. I just felt like it was too obvious and the government really had no choice to let him get away with that. Like,

even with his whole thing with the drug addictions and everything, like it was just too much information out there for him to get away with that and not actually be charged. It's funny. Those last two people basically said the same thing that a group of 2020 Trump voters from Utah said about Hunter's conviction, which is like, yeah, I guess he must really be guilty if this rotten system will convict him. So Amy, what do you think it says about Hunter?

the state of politics, that the president's son being convicted of federal crimes was the second biggest story in politics in the last month, obviously the first one being the conviction of the actual former president. I think you and I talked about this before, about how, on one hand, it's going to be like a boring election cycle because it's like the same two guys from before. On the other hand, like the weirdest stuff is happening. The weirdest stuff is happening. And here's the thing, right? It's not moving numbers. And we know this. I guess we've been watching the last

Eight years. Numbers don't move dramatically. This idea of like, this is going to be a seven point shift in so-and-so's favor. Of course it's not. People are pretty well plugged into this and they're pretty cynical. And that son for a son quote, I think, was essentially what everybody came to the conclusion that this is really all political. Right.

Right. And so I'm not taking it all that seriously. Now, it doesn't mean that this isn't part of the equation for them as they're weighing these candidates.

Right. And I think we talked about this, too. But this is why I firmly believe that what we're talking about in October and September matters more than anything else. So what is the media talking about? What is the vibe out there? Is it still that we're talking about, oh, my gosh, inflation prices, house prices like that's still the driving conversation. Do we have other topics that are now front and center? And so in your checklist.

Certain things that were on the bottom now become more salient. Certain things that were at the top now become less salient. And so it's all kind of jumbling in there. There's not one specific thing that is going to change their mind. I think it's you get there. Whenever you're voting, you're voting earlier, you're voting on Election Day, and you're like, hmm, all of these things, I put them through the blender, and this is what I ended up with. Yeah.

This is what I'm drinking. This is the poison I'm picking. All right, look, I want to close out with how these voters who, mind you, would still vote for Trump if the election were today, but how they talked about Trump's criminal conviction. I think this goes to our point, Amy, about the fact that they were pretty nuanced in their thinking about this. Let's listen. I completely think he's guilty. I completely think that it won't mean anything. And I'm actually surprised that it's not meaning anything, but I do believe he's guilty.

He was literally making up paperwork. It was not just for paying off a prostitute. And then about the rigging the election, you know, it's like he's very tied with Putin, with Russia's president. And I think that helps a little bit too, because I mean, if anybody can talk to Putin, I think it's Donald. But about the voting machines being rigged by hackers from Russia, and it was tied back to Trump. And it's just like,

The man is fraud, has fraud written all over him. But again, back to the lesser of two evils. I just, you know, I don't know. I just hope that it brings some kind of reform for people with felonies. Because I know somebody that has a felony. They never killed anybody. It was self-defense. And because of that felony, they can't even get a job or an apartment. They can't even be a realtor. So I saw this and I'm like, okay, hold on a second. This guy has 34, he can be president.

But then my husband can't get an apartment. He can't get a job. He can't do this and can't do that because of one mistake he did in his life. And this guy did all this stuff. So I'm looking at it in terms that if he wins the presidency, I feel like many people should speak out and be like, well, if he's up there, then why can't we be able to rent an apartment? Why can't we be realtors, mortgage brokers, and move on with our life and have another opportunity? So I definitely think it's good.

But I think that the way they went about it was still a little bit unfair, just like certain selected jurors or certain judges. It's like kind of set up for failure. It wasn't super fair. Even though if it was fair, I still think he would be found guilty, but maybe less counts or something.

I mean at the end of the day, when you talk about you know any politician having some sort of record or criminal, I mean it's it's across the world. And so if for a politician to have a criminal background or a conviction or an investigation, I mean at this point it's for me it's not a surprise at all. The position of power that presidency is the level of corruption, I mean

Yeah, I'm Brazilian, so I shouldn't say, because our president currently in Brazil was literally in jail for years, and now he's the president. So there you have it. Now, that guy's last comment, it was like an aside when we were talking about something else, but it goes to show that it's more normalized for some voters than others that a convicted felon would serve as president. They all thought he was guilty. They all were still going to vote for him. Right, exactly. Again, on the grand scheme of things in their lives, how they...

appropriate this issue, the salience with which they give this issue is lower. The woman though, like, well, let's make lemons out of lemonade then, man. If we're going to have a convicted felon as president,

Maybe he can help other convicted felons, right? Like her husband, who's unable to get a career because of this conviction and ways to sort of limit the ability for that to stay on your record. Although when Trump was president, right, that was one of his accomplishments was the criminal justice reform, right? Kanye. Yeah. Jared. Yeah.

Addressing what that woman had been frustrated about. I don't know that he's going to be spending as much time on that now. All right. So, Amy, I know I have to let you go, but I just want to ask you one last question to your point about salience and your point about what we're talking about in October.

Do you feel like the Biden campaign, again, we're taping this before the debate, but this week we did see some polling. Fox News had a poll. And there's been a number of polls that directionally show Biden kind of ticking up a point or two and also showing that people's opinion of the economy was starting to tick up a little bit. So do you think that the Biden campaign, like,

there was a lot of expression in this group of the Biden campaign's liabilities with these voters. And I don't think it's just with Hispanic voters, obviously. I think this is true of working class voters or people who are drifting into the Trump coalition in general. But like, do you think that the campaign is picking it up and like understanding and starting to speak to these people in a way that could ever win some of these guys back? Well, as I said, I think, and it's where we started this conversation,

The one opening they have is this idea that they understand people like us. These voters, not necessarily. We're not in that camp. But I think that's where you kind of have to go here is...

Like if Biden spends the next five months saying, no, no, no, the economy is better under me. No, no, we did an awesome job. Trump did a terrible job. That is not going to work. You're not going to convince people of that. And that's very much a waste of time and energy. But you've got to use that looking out for me as a way to get in underneath Trump's success on his past projects.

term as president on the economy to say, yeah, but when he comes back, the stuff he's going to do isn't going to help you. It's going to help his friends. It's going to help himself. It's going to help rich people. But it's not going to be you. I think what we're going to see, Sarah, especially if this debate goes on,

somewhat well for Biden is some of these Democrats are going to start coming home, right? Yeah. I'm sure you still hear them in your focus groups. I still hear it from people of like, are we 100% sure that Biden will be the nominee? Like 100% sure. So I still think there are a bunch of folks sitting on the sidelines today who are never going to vote for Trump, but who are like, really, this is the election? And

As it starts to become clear and clearer that, nope, this is the election they're getting, they start to come home. But

in our polling, what was interesting to me to look at the people who are potential Biden defectors, so the people he needs to bring back, overwhelmingly, I mean, one of the biggest groups is women of color, which is interesting, right? On the one hand, you say, oh, well, that's a pretty reliable Democratic group. It shouldn't be that hard to get them back. On the other hand, you go, that's a pretty reliable Democratic group. They should be with him. Is that Gaza? Yeah.

I don't know. I wonder if it's gossip, but I also think, and we see women really as some of the biggest percentage of either the double haters or undecideds. And there's been talk too about the gender gap being smaller this time around. I do think a couple of things. First,

not to be like super stereotypical, but when it comes to cost of stuff, women are the ones who see it more than probably any other, right? They are going to the grocery store. They are dealing with the family budget. Like they are very conscious of it. So I do think that's a big piece of it. I do think women decide later too, in general. And

And I mean, look, it was the women who brought this up in this group almost more than anyone was the age issue. And whether...

he would be able to do this job. So I think the three of those things are what are keeping those voters. And it could be also everything from Gaza to other things that they feel like he's sort of fallen short. But the RFK voters, those are a lot of women who are parking themselves there right now. I don't know that they're going to stick with RFK, but I think they're putting themselves there because they can't really do Trump, but they're not sold on going with Biden again.

I totally agree with that. And we hear from a lot of these RFK curious voters in the groups who have very little information about RFK and I think can still move. Okay. You know what? I really wish we had more time because I kind of want to argue with you on the economy thing because I,

I would love to see some offense on the economy. I agree with the way that you described it as not being great, but I think that the economy is good enough that they got to tell people about it. I mean, in this group, like a majority of the group thought we were in an active recession.

Like you cannot let that persist. And it actually makes total sense to me that you would see hesitation from lower income women who are doing all the shopping and are super price sensitive and are really frustrated with prices. But you know what? The economy is good. These middle class voters who sort of talk about the economy or whatever, like lots of them are doing well in this economy. And I just, it's a longer conversation, but I would, we should just do a sidebar.

Yeah, we should have that a whole conversation about that. I would love it. Once I get my jacket, my five-timers jacket. When I send your jacket, you know, when I send your jacket, you got it. Amy Walter, thank you so much for joining us. You are an all-time favorite of mine and of our listeners. You are a favorite of mine. Thanks to all of you for listening to the Focus Group podcast. Remember to rate, review us on Apple Podcasts and subscribe to the full work on YouTube. We will see you guys next week. Bye.