Swing voters from North Carolina weigh in on the economy, President Trump, midterm voting intentions and AI.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
North Carolina is an important swing state for this fall’s midterms, and last night, 12 swing voters from that state gathered for a focus group to talk politics. NPR senior political correspondent Mara Liasson watched it. And she’s here now to tell us about it. Hi there.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: So, Mara, I know that you’ve been observing these focus groups every month. It’s part of a partnership that NPR has with the market research companies Engagious and Sago. But let’s talk about what happened last night. What struck you specifically about the voters that you saw?
LIASSON: What struck me was how sticky support is for President Trump and Republicans. These were 12 voters who voted for Trump in ’24 after voting for Biden in 2020. And this focus group, like all focus groups, is not statistically significant. But it does help illustrate what we’re seeing in polling.
We know Trump’s overall numbers are way down. But his voters in these groups are largely sticking with him and his party. This group was more Republican-leaning than some of the other focus groups we’ve had. It was from North Carolina, a redder swing state. And these voters were critical of the president, divided over his job approval, but very reluctant to move away from Republicans.
SUMMERS: All right. Let’s dig into the specifics here. What did you hear from these voters?
LIASSON: They’re unhappy with the economy. They’re unhappy with the war in Iran. They don’t like the White House ballroom. They say Trump is generally out of touch with their economic concerns. Voters in these groups are only identified by first name. So here is Vicky (ph), a self-described independent.
VICKY: He’s always been out of touch (laughter) with our economics. But because he’s laser focused on just the war, he’s not thinking that $100 in groceries only gets me two bags of food.
LIASSON: So another voter pointed to Trump’s wealth as the reason he’s out of touch. Another one mentioned his age. But this is the key. Very few of these voters said they would vote for a Democrat this fall specifically to counter Trump or check Trump.
SUMMERS: OK. And I find that interesting because we’re hearing a lot of unhappiness with President Trump. But it doesn’t sound like a lot of warmth or appetite for Democrats either. What does that tell you?
LIASSON: It tells me that Democrats have a big brand problem. Voters have very harsh words for the Democratic Party. Here’s a sample from last night. Voters were asked to use just a word or phrase to describe Democrats.
UNIDENTIFIED SWING VOTER #1: Confused.
UNIDENTIFIED SWING VOTER #2: Doesn’t play well with others.
UNIDENTIFIED SWING VOTER #3: Lost and floundering.
LIASSON: And this makes a bigger point about the midterms. The universe of truly swingy voters is pretty small, and it’s very hard to get Republicans to flip. We know from past midterms that over 95% of Democratic-leaning voters vote for Democratic candidates, and over 95% of Republican-leaning voters vote for Republican candidates. So if they’re going to get a durable majority, Democrats have to flip some right-leaning voters in places like North Carolina. There’s just not enough independents to convince or Democrats to turn out.
SUMMERS: Mara, I have to ask, was there anything that came up in this focus group that cut across party lines?
LIASSON: Yes, AI. A lot of concerns about AI job loss. The participants were played a video from a commencement address where the students booed every mention of AI. Here’s how Barrett (ph) responded to it.
BARRETT: We’ve got an entire generation of kids that have been told since they were in third grade, learn computer science, learn how to code. You can write your own ticket in this world. And now they’re graduating, and it’s like, eh, never mind. We got AI now. We don’t need you.
SUMMERS: Mara, do you see either party taking advantage of what seems to be a broad concern?
LIASSON: No. And it is a bipartisan concern. I think it’s a possible potential opening for Democrats if they can become the party that protects voters from AI job loss. This is something new. And we’re going to be asking about it every month with these focus groups going forward.
SUMMERS: NPR’s Mara Liasson. Thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
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