Pollster Frank Luntz came in for a shock on Wednesday when every member of his panel of Trump voters expressed support for President Donald Trump on tariffs. Perhaps Luntz was surprised because he believed media reports about how Trump is supposedly losing his base due to his policy on tariffs such as this report from Brookings, „Trump’s tariffs are not going over well with his base.“
High comedy was provided when Luntz’s own panel reminded him that not only do they continue to support Trump’s tariff policy but that they don’t think the stock market has „crashed“ as Luntz dramatically framed it.
“It needed a correction.” 📉
I asked Trump voters whether they were upset about their 401(k) accounts’ performance over the past 100 days.
📺 Full episode up now: https://t.co/6as1DOWVLT pic.twitter.com/JdcjCH5szR
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) April 25, 2025
Some of the highlights from the Frank Luntz inadvertent comedy special:
FRANK LUNTZ: I need to ask you an issue that no one has brought up and that has crashed your 401Ks. Most of you. Tariffs. Stock market is way down.
PANELIST SARINA: It needed a correction.
LUNTZ: Oh, so you support it?
PANELIST SARINA: You bet! And I have to tell you, my 401K wasn’t impacted at all.
A little later Luntz is shocked that no one on the panel is upset by a minor dip recently in the stock market. In fact his question to them sounded more like a plea wondering why no one was upset.
LUNTZ: No one is upset over this?
PANELIST JOHN: There’s not a single 4-year period in the history of the stock market where the stock market hasn’t appreciated an average rate of about 7%. Yeah, there’s ups and downs and corrections, people are foolish and they jump out – buy high, sell low – but if people get in, and stay the course, they’ll be just fine.
PANELIST SUSAN: I’m not a day trader. I try not to look at it very often which is I think is a good thing. I also trust that Trump and all of his advisors involved with the tariff issue know what they’re doing. So I’m just going to hang on. I know it’ll correct at some point. I’m not really worried about it.
At this point, the optimism of the panelists on the economy seemed to frustrate poor Luntz so he tried again to toss a wet blanket on the discussion:
LUNTZ: How much more are you willing to pay for products and services that come out of China? How much do prices have to go up before you say, is not that crazy?
PANELIST SARINA: I’d rather not buy from China! I’d rather pay more money and buy American.
PANELIST JOHN: Prices only go up if demand is inelastic and if there’s no alternative supplies. They’re doing a brilliant job. They’re surrounding China with countries that want to manufacture stuff as well. And we do need to bring stuff back. The strategic stuff for sure. But China is going to be in the soup if they don’t knock it off.
After similar comments from other panelists who wanted the USA to „stay the course,“ Luntz went into silent mode as he seemed to realize that the premises he started with about hostility to Trump’s tariff policies were no longer operative.
