President Trump needs to follow through on economic promises he made to the “paycheck-to-paycheck” voters who helped him secure a second term, according to one GOP pollster, who has questioned some White House tactics.
Pollster Frank Luntz said the group of financially struggling voters generally support the Trump administration’s intent to downsize government, though they may not appreciate the style of the president’s designated budget slasher, tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“They don’t want the president to take his eye off the ball when it comes to how much their day-to-day life costs them,” Luntz said Wednesday during an interview with NewsNation’s “On Balance.”
“When you say, ‘paycheck to paycheck,’ it means that their house is barely paid for,” he told host Leland Vittert, speaking of the voters. “It means they have nothing left over at the end of the week or end of the month. And they want to make sure that this administration is as focused now as they were during the election campaign.”
Luntz added that voters also wonder how Trump’s threatened tariffs may affect the prices they pay. Some of them also worry about potential cuts to the safety net of Medicaid, Luntz said, because they feel they are one health care crisis away from bankruptcy.
As for Musk, who toted a chainsaw at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Luntz noted that the paycheck-to-paycheck crowd may not appreciate his methods.
“My message to Elon Musk is, they believe in the principles that he has articulated,” he said. “They believe in the effort that he’s doing, but they don’t believe in the way that he’s communicating it, and he’s creating enemies that don’t necessarily have to exist.”
