Top Republican pollster accuses Harris advisers of ‘political malpractice’ over campaign focus on Trump

Veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz has accused Kamala Harris’ campaign advisers of committing “political malpractice” for fixating on Donald Trump’s flaws rather than telling the electorate “about her”.

Luntz sat down with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on This Week and argued that the vice president’s campaign aides set her up for failure due to a lack of focus on creating her own political identity and policies.

“It was too much defining what Trump was…,” Luntz said.

“Not defining herself?,” Karl interjected.

The longtime GOP pollster continued: “We all know what Trump is. We experienced him for four years. Whoever told her to focus on him committed political malpractice, because in the end, you cannot change someone’s point of view on him, it was all about her.”

Trump once again outperformed pollsters’ prediction and won a historic second term in the White House last week.

The Republican candidate surpassed the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes after winning several key battleground states by the early hours of Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after ballots opened on Election Day.

On the show on Sunday, Karl asked Luntz for the “bottom line” as to why Harris failed to win over swing voters.

“They did not like either candidate, that was clear,” he replied. “They thought that Trump was offensive and abusive in his language, and polarizing, but in the end, she didn’t answer the question that they wanted to know.

“What are you going to do in the first hour, in the first day, in the first week, the first month and so on? They felt they had the right to hear this, and if she won’t tell them that, then they couldn’t give her their vote.”

Sources close to the Harris campaign revealed to The Washington Post that they believe there was too much of a focus on using clunky rhetoric in an attempt to discredit Trump, described as the “Triple U’s”: Unhinged, unstable and unchecked.

Another described Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillion as a micromanager who failed to win over voters on key issues which Trump took a staunch position on including immigration and the economy.

In the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election in November, Luntz correctly predicted that Trump would take the lead on election night, but in the “hours and days that followed, Biden would catch up, move ahead, and would eventually be elected president”.

By July 20, 2024, Luntz this time hedged a bet for the GOP candidate.

“I can tell you now, that unless something dramatic happens to Trump, I believe he’s the next president,” he told The Times.

But when Harris then launched her presidential campaign on July 21, Luntz predicted the playing field leveled out.

After the debate on September 10, Luntz forecast that Harris’ performance on stage clinched her the presidency.

By mid-October, the pollster admitted the race was too close to call.