let's dig deeper now on the state of Republican politics following the midterm elections joining
us now is pollster and strategist Frank Luntz Frank we appreciate you sharing part of your
afternoon with us a lot of Republicans are on pins and needles awaiting this potential special
announcement from Donald Trump next Tuesday some advisors are urging him to postpone at least until
after that early December Senate runoff in Georgia how do you think Trump might impact that race
it could be significant it was significant two years ago when Donald Trump went down there and
said that the Georgia election was stolen and therefore your vote doesn't matter and thousands
of Republicans stayed home as a result and they lost two seats they otherwise would have won in
the polling that we did in 2020 the generic ballot was in favor of the Republicans but the actual
vote was not and that's because Republican voters stayed home they don't want Trump to be blamed for
what happened then and they don't frankly want Trump to be blamed for what happened on Tuesday
night when a whole lot of Senate candidates who could have won didn't because the feeling was they
simply were not the strongest candidates they had flaws and the election slipped away from them and
it's interesting that Republicans picked up seats in the House haven't picked up seats in the Senate
and the former presidents being blamed for that and Frank if you are Herschel
Walker do you want Trump coming down to the peach state to rally and campaign with you
you do but you don't want them in Atlanta or the Atlanta suburbs you want him in the outer parts of
the state which is harder to get to it requires more work Donald Trump is still the number one
Republican in America today there's no doubt about it but his overall patina has been flawed
considerably or darkened considerably and in the Atlanta the Atlanta suburbs he is a negative and
this is something that his candidates did not really understand and I'm not convinced
that he understands either that for every one voter who thinks he's God you've got one and
a half who thinks he's horrible and it had an impact in Pennsylvania uh had an impact in New
Hampshire you're watching that impact right now in Arizona Trump is brilliant at giving at providing
the margin of victory in a primary but he is Kryptonite when it comes to the general election
that's fascinating it one bright spot for Republicans if we're looking at Tuesday
night was New York where they picked up I believe it was four House Seats
they they swept Long Island uh they kicked out uh Sean Patrick Maloney the DCCC chair
um what do you think was key to their success in blue New York
uh frustration not just for the economy but frustration with crime and the feeling that
the Democrats were not doing enough to keep people safe and secure in fact that's where the
Republicans did best people who lived in suburbs who knew what was going on in New York City
lived away from that and chose to live away for a reason they wanted to keep their family
safe and they could afford to do so and those voters switched the Republicans and the other
key factor was Trump he wasn't there he wasn't involved he wasn't engaged he wasn't picking
winners and losers he was not part of the process in the places that Pennsylvania uh
uh Arizona New Hampshire places that Trump was involved in he did not the Republicans did not
do well places where Trump did not campaign in such as New York the Republicans did quite well
so if what you're saying is that Donald Trump is Kryptonite how would you counsel Republicans to
shift away from him I mean he still wins primaries for a lot of these candidates
um how can they be successful in primaries without the former president uh that's a very legitimate
question that's something that Republicans have to decide uh in the end Donald Trump has every right
to run and he has in fact it's more than that we need to acknowledge that he's still the most
popular Republican Nationwide but when he attacks the very popular governor of Virginia and he's
been going after the extremely popular governor of Florida you're going to watch Trump's numbers
start to deteriorate it's one thing when he's attacking Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden Republicans
expect that but when he's attacking the next generation of Republican leadership mark my words
the party's going to turn against him and the angrier he gets at other conservative Republicans
the more that they're going to punish him with a loss of support and a loss of faith and confidence
in his message and what he's what he brings to the political process I if I were advising him right
now I would tell him to take a very long vacation simply disappear for the next 30 days because he's
destroying himself every single day by attacking Ron DeSantis Glenn Younkin people who other
Republicans respect and appreciate and voted for in big numbers in the previous elections uh I am
skeptical that Donald Trump is going to disappear for 30 days or any amount of time anytime soon
we'll see whether he makes that announcement next Tuesday um Frank Luntz thanks so much for the time