Pollster Frank Luntz hosted a focus group and found the participants “overwhelmingly ” believe vice president Mike Pence won Wednesday night’s debate.
After the debate was over, he asked for a show of hands as far as who won, and told everyone they had to choose one way or the others. No one was allowed to abstain.
Democrat vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris only received two votes out of the 15 undecided voters present. The rest went for Pence.
“It’s overwhelmingly Mike Pence ,” Luntz said as he counted the hands.
When he asked why, the answers sounded like this:
“Mike Pence was more factual. ”
“I felt he was a lot more composed and I wasn’t a fan of her continual facial expressions.”
“He had command of the issues.”
“Harris didn’t look presidential to me.”
“Harris struggled to put together coherent reasons for different questions.”
One person who said Harris won said, “I feel she cared about the people and she looked presidential.”
“]Pence had] straightforward answers, even if I don’t agree with him on policies.”
“He kept his cool. He answered with facts.”
“She was a less fluid communicator.”
When asked to use one word or phrase to describe Pence, the group said, “presidential, robotic, he could be president, even-keeled presidential, bland, regressive, professional, unsympathetic, calm, cool, typical politician, comfortable, no emotion.”
When asked to use one word or phrase to describe Harris, the group was much tougher: “evasive, nervous, focused on the past, shifting blame, caring, snarky and sarcastic, too rehearsed, nervous, evasive, abrasive, unsteady, rigid, un-presidential.”
Overall, a big issue was Kamala’s “annoying” facial expressions and “evasive answers,” most especially her refusal to answer the question about packing the Supreme Court. A question Joe Biden also refuses to answer.
Luntz appeared on Fox News and summed up the undecided focus group with three bullet points.
“The complaint about Kamala Harris was that she was abrasive and condescending. The complaint about Mike Pence was that he was too tired, but … presidential. If this is a battle over style and substance,” Luntz said, “which is often the case with undecided voters because they simply do not choose on policy — they also choose on persona — this was Mike Pence’s night.”
Point number three was that the focus group was more upset over “Kamala Harris’s reactions to Pence. The smiling, the smirking, the scowling than they … that Mike Pence went over his time.”
“This is clearly a better debate than the first one,” Luntz said, but that it would not change many minds. “Mike Pence was the winner of tonight’s confrontation.”
It was obvious to anyone who watched the debate that Pence was the clear winner.
When the fake news media are reduced to making an issue out of a house fly and attacking Pence for “mansplaining,” as though Harris is some weak-willed damsel-in-distress unable to take care of herself, you know Pence won.
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