Little can shake Trump supporters
An interesting focus group of Donald trump supporters:
“Nothing disqualifies Trump.”
That was the takeaway of Frank Luntz, the public opinion guru, after leading a focus group Monday night of supporters of Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign.
For two and a half hours, Luntz quizzed a group of current and past ardent Trump fans about their views on the businessman. He discussed the candidate’s past liberal stances and played past video of Trump saying provocative things about women. Yet when the focus group was over, not a single person who was planning to vote for him said they had changed their mind.
At one point, Luntz bolted from the room with the focus group to make sure the handful of reporters observing on the other side of the glass understood how big of a deal this was. “My legs are shaking,” he admitted.
“This is absolutely for real,” Luntz said of the intense and loyal support for Trump. “And he is not going away. And he is as strong as every survey shows. All those people who think he’s going to implode have not sat and talked to these voters the way that they should have.”
This is very interesting. It suggests that Trump’s support is locked in and nothing short of a monumental disaster will shake his supporters.
Yet the one thing nearly everybody took issue with was Trump’s past comments questioning former prisoner of war John McCain’s heroism.
“His statement about John McCain, that rubbed me the wrong way,” said one man.
But most signaled they are willing to look past it.
“He’s done some good things,” said a man. “The only real negative I had was his P.O.W comments. Everybody makes comments. You can’t judge his entire candidacy on a comment he made probably on the top his head.”
All this means the rules of politics don’t seem to apply to Trump. Things that would probably damage — or end — other campaigns don’t dent Trump at all.
I thought the McCain comments would kill him. I was wrong. They didn’t like it but they are not letting his comments change their support.