ARLINGTON, Virginia — New focus group data collected by a key group supporting President Donald Trump show that Democrats are losing ground with swing voters when it comes to their impeachment agenda—and when it comes to presidential candidates’ leftist policies.
America First Policies, the president’s official Super PAC, gave Breitbart News on Monday an exclusive sneak peek at findings from its focus group work nationwide in the last month. The organization has now conducted 18 separate focus groups in nine different American cities since late October.
Those cities include Des Moines, Iowa, Orlando, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, Phoenix, Arizona, Miami, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Columbus, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. America First Policies has gathered 36 total hours of focus group data from the participants, all of whom are independents or swing voters in their respective cities.
The biggest takeaway from all the groups, including one in Pittsburgh thatwas conducted after the first House Intelligence Committee public impeachment hearing last Wednesday that featured State Department officials Bill Taylor and George Kent, is that swing voters are not being moved in the slightest against Trump by the impeachment narrative Democrats are offering.
America First Policies screened footage from these focus groups for Breitbart News at their headquarters just outside the nation’s capital on Monday afternoon, including the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, group that was filmed after that first Democrat impeachment hearing. When the moderator asked the room if anyone thinks Donald Trump should be impeached, not a single person in the room—all independents, most of whom do not like Trump’s personality—said they did.
After a moment of silence when the focus group conductor asked the room of independents if Trump should be impeached, a man finally said: “Not even close.”
The man continued when asked why the Democrats are pushing for impeachment:
This is their platform. This is all they got—and what they got is nothing. They want to keep to politics and Trump is not a politician. They are going to do everything they can because he bucked the system. He exposed what the draining the swamp and everything means. That’s the thing—they don’t even have anything close to valid. It’s just nothing. Instead of focusing on policies, they’re trying to do this to win the election.
When the moderator asks another man how House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has done handling the impeachment inquiry so far, he replies: “I don’t know because I can’t believe half of what the media puts out because they’re biased—and there’s been no proof on the table.”
“I’m not all Trump… I’m not a party voter,” that man continues. “But he calls it like it is. He’s a renegade… Do I respect the man? I don’t. But I respect the office. But I don’t see where they have enough to say he knew about it so…”
Up next was a woman, who said she is not a Trump supporter but thinks the president is getting railroaded:
I’m not a Trump supporter by any means, but I totally disagree with what they’re doing. I know he’s not perfect, but by the same coin he’s right there and he tells you how it is. I don’t agree with all of the things. But at least he’s trying to do things.
After that another woman and another man—both of whom are not Trump supporters—made the case that Democrats’ impeachment goals are meaningless because the Senate will clear Trump even if the House impeaches him.
“Sadly, I don’t feel—just because they’ll stick to party lines—that this will go anywhere,” the woman said.
“And they have to know that, so then you have to ask why they’re doing this,” the man added.
“Correct,” the woman concurred. “It’s just a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”
Another man said he thinks the Democrats are doing it so Trump “has an asterisk next to his name going into the next election.” He went on:
But another thing is I think it shows a weakness, or a lack of confidence, in the Democrat field and concern that their eventual candidate can’t beat Donald Trump. Otherwise, why would you be doing this a year out from the election?
This dismissal of impeachment was a consistent theme throughout the focus groups that America First Policies conducted throughout the country. Generally speaking, most of the focus groups—video from all of which Breitbart News reviewed in America First’s northern Virginia offices—had no supporters of even the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. The handful of those that did support an actual inquiry—because they want elected leaders like Trump to face scrutiny and they support investigations, not because they think he actually did anything wrong—certainly do not think there is enough evidence to impeach, never mind convict Trump and remove him from office.
A woman in the North Carolina focus group, for instance, said Democrats are “wasting a lot of time and money” pursuing Trump’s impeachment and should instead “get back to doing what they’re supposed to be doing, passing laws.”
A man in that group also summed up what independents are thinking, dismissing the Democrats’ impeachment agenda:
When the news of this first broke, I was sitting there thinking okay these are conversations that mostly went on and then you step back and look what they are—from what media outlet—and you go, okay, his personality is arrogant. We’ve all seen him say something stupid. However, on the flip side of that, all this secrecy—the smoke and mirrors—the unwillingness to unmask the whistleblower out of fears of safety. Come on. What are you hiding?
These sentiments on impeachment were not the only thing that America First’s focus groups uncovered. Another consistent theme is that while these independent swing voters like President Trump’s policies and what he’s accomplished for the country, they do not like his personality or his tweets.
Generally speaking, the swing voters wish Trump would tweet less attacks on opponents—and not say certain things sometimes. But they did also reveal that while the voters find Trump’s abrasive personality off-putting at times, they do like that he is a “street fighter” in the words of one and that he has exposed corruption in the federal government.
Perhaps most importantly for Trump, the voters do not see him as part of the political system—they do not consider Trump a “politician,” despite the fact he’s been in office for nearly three years now—and they still consider him an outsider or “renegade,” in the words of one Pittsburgh-area independent.
What’s more, America First’s focus groups also uncovered a lot of sentiment among independents about several of the top Democrat presidential candidates. Regarding former Vice President Joe Biden, top terms focus group participants used were “too old,” “forgetful,” and “Obama’s second hand.” They also described Biden as a “creep” who makes unwanted advances against young women and as “the swamp,” a sign that America First Policies officials believe demonstrates that attacks on Biden’s son Hunter Biden are breaking through to voters nationwide.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is described as a “socialist,” “outspoken,” a “liar,” and “academic.” Warren’s history of falsely claiming to be a Native American has broken through, as several of the independent voters in the focus groups across the country called Warren “Pocahontas.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, meanwhile, was described as “too old,” “angry,” “crazy,” and “socialist.”
Another interesting finding from these focus groups is that these independent voters do not see much of a difference between any of the Democrats, even when there are actual policy-specific nuances separating them. For instance, when former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) called for door-to-door gun confiscation and mandatory government-controlled buybacks of Americans’ firearms before he later dropped out of the presidential race, one woman in a North Carolina focus group expressed outrage at the whole Democrat field over it. She said:
“I watched ten minutes of the Democratic debate and when I heard somebody talking about taking your guns I thought ‘you just fucking killed yourself.’ What was he talking about when he was saying he was going to take our guns?”
“No way in hell are they getting our guns,” another woman said.
The woman did not use the name “Beto O’Rourke” when expressing her frustrations with Democrats on gun confiscation, but just broadly spoke of all the Democrats like this. America First Policies officials told Breitbart News that generally speaking on issues like gun confiscation, illegal immigration, and healthcare—particularly the backing of the government takeover of healthcare through “Medicare For All”—these focus group voters do not see much nuance between the different Democrats’ plans and policy visions, a problem for Democrats as swing voters are painting them all with a broad brush into radically leftist socialist positions.
What’s more, the only two Democrat candidates for president these focus group independent swing voters spoke highly of were Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and businessman Andrew Yang. The swing voters, the America First Policies officials told Breitbart News, like Gabbard’s military service and the fight she just got in with 2016 Democrat nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. As for Yang, they said, the voters are intrigued by his different kinds of ideas like the universal basic income idea.
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