President Donald Trump delivered a “well-articulated” argument for a second term to close the Republican National Convention, according to longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz.
“He made a very strong case, like his daughter, Ivanka, for all the things that have happened in the last four years,” Luntz said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday. “I think it was delivered well with the White House as a backdrop. And we can argue about whether that’s legal or not, but in terms of show, in terms of content, in terms of language, it has shown what the Republican Party is over. ”
Trump’s more than 70-minute speech by the South Lawn of the White House Thursday night served as a rebuttal to a four-day GOP convention that was changed by the coronavirus pandemic, one week after the Democratic Party’s own nominating convention packed.
Luntz, who last week complimented Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s acceptance speech, said he thought with both major party conventions in the books, “there really should be no undecided voters, because there there is simply no agreement between the two presidential candidates. ”
“Donald Trump made a strong case for why Joe Biden’s policies are dangerous for the country. Joe Biden made a strong case for why Donald Trump is no longer qualified to lead the country. They both did an excellent job at it. disqualifying the other, “contested Luntz, who personally attended hundreds of other Trump speeches.
At the same time, Luntz, who is known for his running focus groups of voters, said he believes both candidates had shortcomings in their primary address. “I’m not convinced that both did enough work to defend themselves, and that’s the current American policy – why the other side is wrong and why the other side does not deserve to be president.”
Luntz said last week that he felt the address of the former vice president was light on substance and specific policy proposals. He also warned at the time that Trump could run the risk of using “over-caffeinated rhetoric” in his speech, exposing potentially turning voters in the middle who might be on the president’s economic agenda, but might not “like” Donald Trump personally. ”
“There were times in the speech when he went too far, as he often does. The idea that he was the best president for African Americans since Abraham Lincoln. I think he was Lyndon Johnson and all the work of forget the 1960s, “Luntz said Friday.
But Luntz said he also thought Trump delivered several lines throughout the speech that represented new and effective lines of attack on Biden. “He talked about anarchy and anarchism versus socialism, and that’s really the first time I heard him try to define Biden with a word and language that is different from what he said in the past.” He added: “I thought his best line was: ‘How can the Democratic Party lead our country if they spend so much time dismantling our country?'”
Biden leads Trump by 7.1 percentage points in an average of national polls, which is down from 7.6 percentage points at this time last week, according to RealClearPolitics.
On Wednesday, a poll by CNBC / Change Research of voters in six crucial swing states found that Trump’s approval rating was higher by two percentage points ticking up to 48%, compared to 52% of voters who dropped out. The poll also found that Biden led Trump by a margin of 49% to 46% across major states.
“At this point, it’s a Biden election,” Luntz said. “But I say this emphatically, this election is too close to call. The debates will escalate. We will have record attendance.”
.
