Pollster Frank Luntz: Trump Campaign ‘is an absolute joke’

Frank Luntz

Conservative pollster Frank Luntz sat down with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric Wednesday and explained why he thinks Donald Trump’s presidential bid is “the worst campaign that I have ever seen in my professional life.”

Perhaps best known as the wordsmith behind many Republican talking points, Luntz had quite a few zingers about Trump, including one about the GOP nominee’s sometimes stilted delivery of prepared speeches.

“Stevie Wonder reads a teleprompter better than Donald Trump,” he jested.

He also suggested that Trump’s campaign should do whatever it takes to keep its candidate away from his hyper-aggressive Twitter account. “Break his fingers, take the iPhone away,” he joked.

But Luntz also offered some serious analysis on why Trump’s campaign was such an unexpected success in the primaries and where, he thinks, the candidate has since gone wrong.

When Luntz’s focus-group participants are asked what they think is wrong with the country, he said they always have an answer, and it’s usually a “very deep, very emotional, very personal” one. “Often, we’ll have women and men almost in tears” when talking about issues like the depletion of manufacturing jobs and unemployment in general, their feelings of a lost sense of security or their concerns about police.”

“Trump spoke to those people,” he said. “This candidate tapped into something unique [but] has absolutely lost his focus.”

The problem with Trump’s campaign, Luntz argued, “is that it’s become too much about him and not about the people he represents.”

Luntz also said he was grateful not to have been involved with the candidate’s White House bid.

“This is a campaign that is an absolute joke,” he said.