Pollster Frank Luntz made headlines Tuesday for calling President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign “the worst campaign I’ve ever seen.” However, he said the same thing in 2016, before Trump went on to win the election.
The Hill reported Tuesday, under the headline “GOP pollster Luntz blasts Trump campaign as worst he’s ever seen”:
Speaking at a briefing for the British strategic advising company Global Counsel, Luntz said Trump’s advisers have “their heads up their asses” if they think Hunter Biden will be a winning issue for them.
“I’ve never seen a campaign more mis-calibrated than the Trump campaign. Frankly, his staff ought to be brought up on charges of political malpractice,” Luntz said.
“It is the worst campaign I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching them since 1980. They’re on the wrong issues. They’re on the wrong message. They’ve got their heads up their assess. … Your damn job is to get your candidate to talk about things that are relevant to the people you need to reach. And if you can’t do your damn job then get out.”
On October 26, 2016, Yahoo! News reported a similar story, under the headline “Frank Luntz: Trump’s campaign is ‘worst campaign that I have ever seen in my professional life’”:
On Oct. 26, Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric that Trump’s campaign is the “worst campaign that I have ever seen in my professional life.” He later added that he blames “the people around him for that.”
Luntz also said of Trump’s effect on undecided voters: “Not only did he not win them over, he actually turned them off, because his language is wrong. His presentation is wrong.”
Luntz also said Trump was wrong to campaign in Wisconsin, which was “absolutely beyond his reach.”
Trump won Wisconsin en route to the presidency, and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton would later be criticized for not campaigning in the Badger State.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.