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Focus group: Trump voters who backed Democrats in 2025 ‘frustrated’ with the economy

admin - Latest News - December 5, 2025
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Margaret Talev looks at a group of Trump voters who supported the democratic candidates in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races in 2025. The focus groups were produced by Syracuse University and the research firms Engagious and Sago and observed by NBC News as part of the 2025 “Deciders” series.



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Dec. 5, 2025, 4:00 PM ESTBy Ben Kamisar and Bridget BowmanVoters who backed Democratic governors in New Jersey and Virginia this year after voting for President Donald Trump in 2024 have a message for both parties: reject your party’s extremes and run campaigns about more than just Trump.In new focus groups, 14 swing voters from New Jersey and Virginia revealed sharply negative views of both parties — and of politicians broadly. They explained that they were drawn in last month’s elections in their states to Govs.-elect Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, who cast themselves as moderates and transcended the damaged Democratic Party brand. And while 10 of these voters disapproved of Trump’s job performance so far and voiced concerns about high prices, a majority said they did not view their votes for governor as a protest vote against Trump. An anti-Trump message alone may not be enough to sway them and voters like them next year in the midterm elections. Kornacki: Polls don’t show ‘huge gap’ in favorability between Democrats & Republicans03:51Instead, their consistent refrain serves as an important message to Republicans and Democrats as they look to sway swing voters in key races across the country next year: Candidate quality matters, ranging from positions on issues to personality to professional background.“I mean, look, I’m a Republican, but let me tell you, if somebody is checking all the boxes for me, if they’re a Democrat, I’m going to go with my gut and what I feel,” Cynthia G., a 52-year-old from New Jersey, said of Sherrill, who served in Congress before she won the governorship.“And Mikie is just proven to me. Naval officer, formal federal prosecutor, mother of four. She’s tough, but she’s like the quiet storm. She’ll get things done,” said Cynthia, who participated in the recent focus groups, which were produced by Syracuse University and the research firms Engagious and Sago and observed by NBC News as part of the 2025 “Deciders” series.Exit polling from the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races show Sherrill and Spanberger, another former House member, both had some crossover appeal as they sailed to double-digit victories, each winning 7% of voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2024. Unlike a poll, which uses statistical methods to demonstrate the views of a larger population, focus groups dig deeper into how individual panelists view key questions facing the country and make decisions. These focus groups shed light on why some voters backed Democrats despite sharply negative views of the Democratic Party and illustrated nuanced views of Trump and how he now factors into their political thinking. “The most important lesson for both parties in 2026 is to not run flawed candidates,” said Rich Thau, president of Engagious. “While affordability, political moderation, and President Trump’s job performance all mattered in Virginia’s and New Jersey’s gubernatorial races, what mattered most to swing voters was candidate quality.”Candidates matterThese voters — including 12 self-described independents, one Republican and one Democrat — said they supported Trump in 2024 because they were optimistic he could better handle the economy. They also viewed then-Vice President Kamala Harris as unqualified and out of touch. And while these voters view both parties negatively, they were especially critical of the Democratic Party, describing Democrats when asked to offer a brief assessment as “dishonest,” “weak,” “unfocused,” “self-serving,” “wishy-washy, and “ineffective.”But Sherrill and Spanberger, a former CIA officer, were still able to win them over by casting themselves as pragmatic moderates and stressing their national security backgrounds.Spanberger “was the closest thing to what you can call a moderate nowadays. She worked across the aisle. She wasn’t an extremist,” said Bruce L., 40, of Richmond, who noted that her congressional office also helped resolve issues for him and his family. Michael C., 60, of Brick, N.J., said he backed Sherrill “because of her veteran status. Because being in the military, when you have a job that needs to get done, you get it done, you make sure you find a way to do it.”Other voters described Sherrill and Spanberger as “sensible,” “pragmatic” and “down-to-earth.” None said they backed the Democrats solely because they would oppose Trump’s policies. “It’s easy to see these Democratic wins in Virginia and New Jersey as a referendum on President Trump, but what these swing voters told us is not quite that simple,” said Margaret Talev, director of Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism & Citizenship. “Moderation, competency and personal appeal is the combination they crave.”Some voters were turned off by the GOP candidates’ embrace of Trump, even though these voters supported him last year.The president endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator, against Sherrill in New Jersey. And while Trump did not back Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, she broadly embraced his policies. “Winsome Earle-Sears just seemed to be an extremist who actually just kept defining herself in comparison to others than rather what she stood for, and would propagate the worst of the Trump policies,” said Robert L., a 54-year-old from Springfield, Virginia. Christian G., 25, of Clifton, New Jersey, described Ciattarelli as a “phony” who was “piggybacking off of Trump a lot, or just utilizing Trump’s name in general.”All but one of the New Jersey voters said their state has been going in the “wrong direction,” but they still voted for a Democrat after two terms of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. Some saw Ciattarelli as part of the same “good old boys’ network” as Murphy. They viewed Sherrill as the candidate more likely to bring a change and were drawn to her proposals to lower the state’s rising utility bills. Meanwhile, nine of the 14 focus group participants said their votes for Sherrill and Spanberger were not about protesting Trump. But the five voters who did view their votes as a protest against Trump voiced a wide range of concerns with his administration so far. “Trump made a lot of promises, but most of them could not be delivered,” said Rebecca H., 52, of Falls Church, Virginia. “For me, it’s kind of a testament to how I guess trust was lost over the year,” said Christian, the Clifton, New Jersey, resident. “Whereas I voted for him back in ‘24, now, a year later I’m feeling let down.”Down on TrumpThe former Trump voters have some significant disagreements with the president — including over health care, his immigration policies, the Defense Department’s attacks on suspected drug boats from South America, and the handling of documents related to the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. But the economy loomed especially large. Trump weighs in on election wins by Democrats02:34Some, like Cynthia G., the 52-year-old New Jersey Republican, believe that the economy is moving “in the right direction, to a degree.” She’s been heartened by seeing prices for goods like eggs going down, even though most of the groups said they’ve seen significant price increases broadly. Others who feel the country is now more stable economically cited their view of Trump as a businessman with a plan or the strength of the stock market. And some see Trump’s aggressive tariff policy as an important way to eventually bring jobs back from overseas. “I agree with the tariffs. I think, honestly, I wish it would force all manufacturing to come back to the United States,” said Ashley E., a 40-year-old Virginia independent. But other participants were fiercely critical of Trump’s handling of the economy, particularly tariffs.“People tried warning him before the elections that the foreign companies don’t pay them [tariffs], it’s reflected in the price. And he said, ‘Oh, that’s not true,’” said Robert L., a 54-year-old Virginia independent. “If he’s such a great dealmaker, he should have used them [tariffs] as a potential stick,” Robert continued. “Instead, he’s a bull in a china shop and greatly impacted the economy and inflation. Presidents can affect inflation and the economy for the worse much more easily than for the better. And he’s done it for the worse.” Some grounded their frustration with Trump’s policies in what they saw as a general abdication of his campaign promise to lift up everyday Americans. “It’s a bait and switch with him where he said he was for the average person but he actually favors big business, and then just does whatever he wants and there’s no consequences,” said Justin K., a 39-year-old independent from Arlington, Virginia, who added that he thinks the “big tech companies” have Trump’s “ear.” In total, the group was largely down on Trump’s actions on immigration, with just two of the 14 respondents saying they approved, on the whole, of the administration’s policies. Some who had positive things to say about the administration clamping down on illegal border crossings were still deeply critical of its mass deportation policies and the widespread arrests being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “He’s tightening the border control — I approve of that and I approve of restricting the refugees. But I don’t like how ICE is kidnapping people,” said Rebecca H., a 52-year-old independent from Virginia. On the U.S. military strikes ordered by Trump on alleged drug boats from Venezuela, or Trump accusing Democrats of “seditious behavior” for making a video calling on members of the military to refuse illegal orders, those who had heard about the episodes largely disagreed with the president. Only one participant backed using the military to strike suspected drug traffickers overseas, arguing America has a “right to defend ourselves from any country, or any person, who’s trying to bring in illicit substances that kill people.”The others criticized the administration for exceeding its authority. Meanwhile, fewer had heard about Trump’s clash with Democratic lawmakers over their social media video about illegal military orders. Some were skeptical about the Democrats’ move in the first place. One voter called it a “great political stunt,” another said it was “insulting” to troops who already knew the rules, and another hesitated because “it’s going to make people start to question everything that’s going on.” But there was near unanimity in their belief that Trump’s response — posting social media messages labeling the lawmakers’ actions as “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH” — was not appropriate. “The last comment, punishable by death — I don’t think you should even go there, calling them traitors and everything like that,” Cynthia G., the 52-year-old New Jersey Republican, said. “He just has to word things a bit better.” Ben KamisarBen Kamisar is a national political reporter for NBC NewsBridget BowmanBridget Bowman is a national political reporter for NBC News.
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Nov. 9, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Tyler KingkadeVAIL, Ariz. — Cienega High School Principal Kim Middleton woke up early last Saturday to urgent messages from district administrators. They told her to call immediately.A photo — in which Cienega math teachers wore matching white T-shirts on Halloween stained with red blotches and reading “Problem Solved” — was circulating rapidly online. Right-wing influencers were claiming that the educators were mocking conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Though the district quickly announced the shirts were a math joke and unrelated to Kirk, conservatives and some Republican officials from around the country amplified the image and portrayed it as a glorification of political violence. In the following days, the high school and its staff received more than 3,000 hateful messages, including dozens of death threats, and so many obscene calls that they disconnected the phones. Teachers stayed home. Sheriff’s deputies stepped up patrols on campus. Confused students asked if they were safe at school.“They were devastated and terrified, and my kids were scared,” Middleton said. “No matter how much I say ‘We’re safe and we’re OK, I love you, we got you’ — people outside of our community who don’t know who we are and what we do terrorized us and targeted us for clicks.”The disruption reminded Vail School District Superintendent John Carruth of a cyberattack, which the district has dealt with before. “Except instead of bots, it’s people,” he said.The deluge of threats that engulfed the district left administrators and teachers feeling helpless to stem the tide of harassment and shows how quickly social media storms can upend a small community based on a single image taken out of context and incorrectly tied to a political motive.In the eight weeks since Kirk, co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was fatally shot while speaking at a college campus in Utah, conservative influencers and some Republican lawmakers have called attention to educators who make light of or justify it, leading to dozens of firings and suspensions.But in the Vail School District, no one said anything about Kirk. The only connection was an inference because the red blood-like stains were on the left side of white T-shirts that some said reminded them of how Kirk was dressed the day he was shot. “This feels like a coordinated effort, and I think people’s emotions are being weaponized,” Carruth said. The district, located in an unincorporated area of Pima County, 24 miles south of Tucson that grew rapidly in recent years, has been the target of far-right extremism before. In 2021, a group of people angry about mask mandates took over a school board meeting and declared themselves as the elected leaders. One of the people involved in the takeover was later criminally charged for threatening to zip-tie a principal in a supposed citizen’s arrest; he was convicted of disrupting an educational institution, trespassing and disorderly conduct, sent to jail for 30 days and placed on probation for three years.But those experiences hadn’t prepared them for a controversy on this scale.The Vail School District originally posted the math teachers photo on Facebook in a batch of images from Halloween festivities late Oct. 31. It appears to have first been circulated individually in local Facebook groups devoted to town gossip before getting picked up by prominent conservative influencers on X, who continued to spread inaccurate claims about it widely.Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet tweeted at 12:06 p.m. ET Saturday that the teachers “deserve to be famous, and fired.” Kolvet has since deleted the post, but it had accrued almost 10 million views on X as of Tuesday.Middleton and her staff moved quickly. They called all the teachers, and she said each denied the shirts had anything to do with Kirk or politics; they were a joke about math teachers slaying math problems, worn in the spirit of a “zombie run” activity the student council had organized. Additionally, at least three of the teachers said they were fans of Kirk, and some had voted for Donald Trump last year. No students or parents had complained, she said.“One teacher said a kid asked him, ‘What’s the problem?’ And the teacher looked at him and went, ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s solved,’ and then the whole class laughed,” Middleton said. “And I thought, oh, my God, that’s math humor.”At 11 a.m. ET Saturday, the district posted a statement on Facebook that explained the context for the photo, but conceded that it could be misconstrued and apologized for it. School leaders hoped things would calm down, but the backlash was just getting started.After the district issued the statement explaining the photo, Kolvet posted it on X — just more than an hour after his initial comments — adding that he’d be relieved if they didn’t intend to reference Kirk, but he didn’t think everyone in the photo was innocent, and said teachers “have been among the worst offenders of mocking and celebrating Charlie’s assassination.” He did not respond to an interview request.The photo only spread from there. One conservative commentator on X posted the photo alongside the names and phone numbers of the teachers. That post has received more than 20 million views.Some Republican politicians also seized on the photo. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X that the Arizona teachers were “glorifying a murder.” He later posted the district’s statement and said people can “decide for themselves.” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, quoted a post featuring the photo and the teachers’ names and phone numbers, adding “Anyone else think this might be the best advertisement ever for school choice and homeschooling?” A spokesperson for DeSantis referred back to his posts. Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Arizona State Treasurer Kimberly Yee, a Republican, posted on X that the shirts were bad even if they didn’t intend to reference Kirk. In a statement to NBC News, she said “threats of violence against anyone” are unacceptable, but that the shirts were “deeply disturbing and should also be condemned, especially when it occurs on a taxpayer-funded school campus.”Others, like Ryan Fournier, co-founder of the national political group Students for Trump, refused to accept the district’s explanation. Fournier, who falsely accused an elementary school administrator in September of justifying Kirk’s murder, updated his post on Facebook — where he has more than 1 million followers — Saturday about the photo with the district’s statement, but said, “I do not believe this for one second.” He did not respond to a request for comment.District officials later found an email from October 2024 that included a photo of the teachers wearing the “Problem Solved” shirts at that time, and released a screenshot of it. Some on social media claimed it was created with artificial intelligence or photo editing software. Arizona state Rep. Rachel Keshel, a Republican from Tucson, continued posting about it on X, stating, “I’m not buying his BS story one bit.” She also emailed the math teachers directly asking for the original photo so she could examine the metadata, district officials said. Keshel did not respond to a request for comment.Hundreds of harassing emails, Facebook messages and phone calls poured in to district employees all weekend. Some were directed at the wrong math teachers — who hadn’t been in the photo — and others sent to random district staff, such as maintenance workers. The personal phone numbers and addresses of teachers were circulated online. Rumors spread that there would be protests and snipers at the school Monday. A guidance counselor said a steady stream of students came into her office this week asking about their safety. One of the math teachers in the photo, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid further harassment, said he didn’t know anything about Kirk until he heard Saturday that people thought he was making fun of his death. It was a stressful weekend, he said, already worried about severe weather threatening extended family abroad, and trying to calm his wife and son who were worried about the reaction to the photo. He hid in his bathroom to cry so his wife wouldn’t see.“Nowadays, everything is scary online,” he said.The math department had considered doing a group costume based on the Gen Alpha meme “6-7,” the teacher said, but decided to reuse the “Problem Solved” shirts they bought on Amazon last year because they’d won a costume contest with them and they didn’t want to spend more money. The “Problem Solved” shirt for sale on Amazon.Amazon via Vail School DistrictHe, like half of the math department, stayed home Monday. When he returned Tuesday, he said, students told him they thought he was going to quit. “I told them, ‘No, I’m not gonna leave you guys behind, you know, we’re family.’” Cienega High School is surrounded by housing developments and advertisements for people to make reservations on yet to be built houses. Cacti and palo verde trees dot the neighborhood. Students on campus are just as likely to be wearing a cowboy hat as they are to have brightly-dyed hair or intricately-designed braids.Students were well-aware of the controversy but largely sided with the teachers. There were extra sheriff’s deputies stationed on campus and patrolling nearby all week.As one student named Elijah, 15, stood feet away from an officer’s patrol car this week, he said he wished the people posting about the teachers online understood how they affected his school. “It’s making us feel uneasy and unsafe just going to school,” he said. The student leaders of the Cienega High School chapter of Turning Point USA sent a letter Tuesday to the math teachers telling them they “hold your department in high regard.”“As a chapter, we recognize that emotions and tensions have run high and we cannot express enough empathy for the massive misunderstanding it has multiplied into,” their message stated, according to a copy reviewed by NBC News. “Our goal as a club remains as it should always be, to foster respectful and healthy conversation, not to divide or harm.”A few minutes after Middleton, the principal, read the club’s message that afternoon, she received another note from the front desk. A man had continuously called the school, demanded to know the names of the women answering the phone and shouted “are you ready to motherf—–g die?” Middleton felt bad that front office staff making around $9 an hour were facing harassment for a situation they had no involvement in. The next day, she decided to send all calls to voicemail, so staff could filter and respond to parents.But the staff has also seen support. Several parents dropped off iced coffee and doughnuts Monday and Tuesday, telling them they were doing so because they felt so bad about the harassment. “This horrific loop of flinging poo and insults at others who we think disagree with us will never be broken online or via a phone call or via an email,” Carruth, the superintendent, said. “It’s only going to be broken by stepping out and meeting our neighbors.”Tyler KingkadeTyler Kingkade is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Los Angeles.
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