Veteran pollster Peter D. Hart and his team at Hart Research Associates conducted their final focus group of the tumultuous 2016 election cycle in Cleveland on December 13, 2016 with people who voted for president-elect Donald Trump. The group of 12 men and women was made up of both die-hard Republicans and people who had previously voted for either Barack Obama or Bill Clinton at least once.
For these individuals, casting their ballot for Trump was a matter of personal economics and personal security, according to Hart. Also “pervasive throughout the group was a strong anti-establishment and anti-politician attitude,” said Hart — the group participants supported Trump because of his business successes and criticized career politicians for corruption, wastefulness, and inability to get things done.
During the campaign, Trump made a number of lofty promises. The focus group made it clear that “Trump’s voters are not about to let him forget these promises, and they fully expect the untraditional outsider to shake up a storm in Washington and make real, tangible improvements in the economy and in their day-to-day lives. The analysis from Hart’s research team notes that this focus group did not include opponents of Trump, whose “ability to unite the nation will be the ultimate test.”
“Voices of the Voters” is an ongoing project run by Hart for the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, which aims to provide a qualitative sense of what voters are thinking and feeling, and what issues are important to average citizens. Previous sessions for the 2016 presidential race were conducted in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Columbus, OH, Indiana, and Colorado.
Click here to read an analysis of the session from Peter Hart, Corrie Hunt, and Annie Norbitz. See below to watch a full video of the Cleveland focus group.
Cleveland focus group on December 13, 2016.
