Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz said it’s “mind-blowing” to him that Donald Trump appears not to understand one simple thing that — if he did — would put the former president “in the driver’s seat” on key election themes.
CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Tuesday noted what looks like the neck-and-neck nature of the 2024 election between Republican nominee Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Keilar asked Luntz what needs to happen for either candidate to “break out” and take the lead in polling.
“Let me be explicit,” Luntz replied. “It’s not in fact about the economy, it’s affordability. It’s prices for housing and healthcare, for food and fuel, and this has been the issue now for the last year.”
Affordability is Trump’s “strongest case for his presidency” and Harris’ weakest, he continued. “And yet Trump doesn’t seem to want to make it.”
Trump would be “in the driver’s seat on the two key issues, immigration and affordability” if he did, argued Luntz.
“It is mind-blowing to me that Trump doesn’t seem to understand this and that Harris has not been more forthcoming about the details of her economic plan,” he added. “Both of those are essential to the outcome and both of those makes an observer like me wonder, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
Watch Luntz’s commentary here:
