President Donald Trump’s own voters ditched their Republican senator over a move Trump made himself, according to a former GOP pollster.
Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, revealed on Saturday’s episode of “The Focus Group” podcast that Trump’s recent stop in Alaska drove his 2024 voters away from Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), who is trying to hold off a challenge from former Rep. Mary Peltola.
Longwell said that two of three women she recruited for a focus group ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections disapprove of the president’s job performance despite voting for Trump in 2024. One said she was planning to vote for Sullivan until Trump showed up in Alaska.
“My original plan was to keep that one the same,” the voter said of her Senate vote. “And really it was Trump’s visit to Alaska that I think probably is when I changed my mind.”
Longwell said the visit was meant to fire up Republicans but had the opposite effect on this voter. “Here is Donald Trump going on the red state tour to help boost Republican turnout, and instead for this woman, it was a reminder of, ‘If I vote for Dan Sullivan, then he’s gonna go and support Donald Trump. Wait a minute. I don’t think I like that anymore,’” Longwell said. “It just reattached Sullivan to Trump.”
Longwell admitted the moment fit her expectations. “That statement really confirms my priors,” she said. “I think that Donald Trump going to these places is a negative for a lot of the Republicans where they’re really close, and that was real evidence of that.”
Another participant voiced similar worries. “Trump is too overly invested or involved in Dan Sullivan,” she said. “And so it makes me think that there are ties and more to that relationship, that he will fall in line.”
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