Frank Luntz Applauds JD Vance for Debate Performance That Earned ‘Overwhelming’ Praise From Focus Group

Pollster and political communications expert Frank Luntz showered Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance with praise for his performance in his debate with Democratic nominee Tim Walz, telling CNN that his focus group showed “overwhelming” movement toward Vance on Wednesday.

In a segment with anchor Sara Sidner — who stated that an “overwhelming majority” of his focus group believed Vance won the debate — Luntz said that voters “loved both candidates,” wished they were at the top of their respective tickets, and “gave them faith in democracy,” but were especially impressed by Vance.

“In terms of Vance, they were shocked that the Vance that they’ve seen up to this point was not the JD Vance of last night: measured, thoughtful, emotional, willing to agree with his opponent, not divisive,” said Luntz. “The language that they used to describe him tells me that he has been misused on the campaign so far, that he would be far better communicating Donald Trump’s agenda, and vision, and purpose than the attack dog kind of strategy that they’ve been using up to now.”

“I have to tell you, only twice in my career have I had such an overwhelming movement towards one candidate,” he continued. “That’s how significant yesterday was, not that they were critical about Governor Walz, that they were so shocked at how emotive Senator Vance was.

In the focus group, voters described Vance as “battle-tested,” “very intelligent,” “in control,” “sincere,” and “authentic.”

“He humanized himself and actually looked like a regular guy,” observed one voter.

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, rose to national prominence and was picked to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate after earning plaudits from progressives for labeling Senator Vance and former President Donald Trump “weird” in a series of interviews while auditioning for the second slot on the Democratic ticket.

Watch above via CNN.