Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Hey there, it's the MPR Politics Podcast for Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. I'm Miles Parks and I cover voting. I'm Ashley Lopez I cover politics. And I'm Mara Laiessen, Senior National Political Correspondent. And we are taping this at 106 PM on Thursday. And today in the show, we are hearing directly from a very important group of voters and introducing a new recurring segment for the podcast, which we're super excited about. Actually, you and Mara have put this all together. We are talking specifically about swing voters. These are voters who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, Donald Trump in 2024. This is the Holy Grail for political reporters. Tell us more. Right. So MPR is partnering with Engage Sensego, which are messaging experts and market researchers. And a big part of what they do is just try to figure out why people feel the way they feel about something and Rich Tau at Engage's who came to MPR with this passion project of his partners with a media company to get a sense of what swing voters in swing states are thinking about when it comes to the news. And I mean, there's a couple reasons of why this is super helpful to political reporters like Mara and I. For one, you know, we don't really know sometimes like what news and what messages get to voters. And that is a big part of what this discussion is. It's like, what news are you hearing and how are you hearing it? Where are you getting your information from? Another piece of this is like, you know, from the perspective of a political reporter, you know, when you go out into the campaign trail, meet voters, like the way you're meeting voters, like there are people you just don't get to. And so if you think of things like political rallies, canvassing, political events of any kind, those are already people who are either in a camp or pretty close to being solidly in a camp. And these are voters that are not in camps. And they're pretty persuadable, which is also a part of the electorate that is harder to find. So we are hearing straight from the horses mouth, not just that they approve or disapprove something, but why? Well, that's what I was going to say is this does feel similar, I guess, to Poling Morrow, but also really different. No, it's not polling and that's really important. This is the why, not the what? This is not scientific. It's only a small group of voters. So we're not trying to extrapolate from their feelings to say, aha, public opinion is going in this direction. But we do want to know why they feel the way they do. And then later in the year, because we're going to do this once a month and you guys will be hearing from us once a month, we want to see how these feelings about the economy, about foreign policy affect their choice in the midterms. It's a little too early to really hold them down on that question, but that's what we're going to be looking for down the line. Oh, it feels so useful. And we talk so much about how polarized the US is. I do feel like a lot of people are like cannot understand what's other people who don't think exactly like them think and they don't really understand the different ways in this changing world that people get information. And so I'm super excited to get this like kind of fly on the wall view of how people are thinking about politics in real time, right? Yeah, most people that you meet are in a camp. They are either a Republican or a Democrat. And as time has gone on in the past couple of decades, people have been more staunchly in one group or the other. But the people who are most politically important, like the people who really swing elections are some of these persuadable, independent or swing voters. Now, I want to be clear, like not all swing voters are independence in the group that we talk to, for example, there were a lot of Republicans. It just so happened in this group and that'll change over time. But these are folks who don't vote for one party, especially, in elections. And so let's dig into this first edition, right? So this is a group of Pennsylvania voters, obviously a critical swing state in the presidential election. Seven of these people consider themselves Republicans, six consider themselves independence, one consider themselves Democrats. But again, these are people who all voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2024. Let's talk big picture. How are these people feeling about the two parties right now, Mara? The moderator of this focus group asked them to use one word to describe each party. Let's start with the one word descriptions they used for the Democrats. Distracted. I'm prepared. Hanukt. Sensitive. Winnie. Scary. Disoriented. Perupt. Week. Week. Actually, two people said week. Now let's hear what they had to say about Republicans in one word. Trump. Week. Conservative. Be wilder. Outspoken. Peter Alec. Loyal. Immoral. So they are swing voters. And one of the features that we know about swing voters is they don't like either party. That's why they swing. Otherwise, they would just stick with their, you know, their party. But I think this shows you how sour the electorate is this year. Yeah, totally. And I mean, gosh, I'm so excited here for these people all year. I'm like, you're shopping at the bed to hear about each individual issue. I guess, give us give us some big picture thoughts on that on what is happening in the world right now. What were your guys' takeaways? Well, the my big takeaway was they are focused on the economy. They feel that foreign policy and ICE is almost a distraction from what they care about. They're not so happy about some of Trump's foreign policy, whether that will affect their vote. We don't know. We'll try to figure that out down the line. But my takeaway is that they felt that Washington in general was not paying attention to what they care about. I also heard a lot of voters complain about the style still that Trump employs when he talks about politics. Like the meanness, the divisiveness, the, you know, the air against came up a lot. A lot of the swing voters that, you know, we heard from, I heard time and time again that the way in which Trump talks about his opponents, his political opponents in particular, make their lives harder because they have to justify voting for Trump all the time. And they feel like this puts them in a weird position with other people. That is a thing that I heard from at least two people where they're like, it makes my life harder when Trump is so divisive. And they, and they wish that his style were different. But this isn't ever a green thing. I feel like we've been hearing this from even people who support Trump for a really long time now. Yeah, I feel like that's less, that would have been less surprising to hear in a focus group in 2017 after people had first voted for them. But these are people who have been experiencing the Donald Trump experience for 10 years. And they're still like, gosh, I wish that he would talk about these issues with a little bit more tact. I guess it sounds like, I do want to drill down on immigration is one of the things that I really am interested to hear about this group of voters because this feels like one of the defining policies of the second Trump term. How did this group of swing voters talk about it? I think that we did not see pushback against the general idea that undocumented immigrants who've committed crimes should be deported. And we know that from polling and these focus group participants were no different. But people are not so crazy about detaining and arresting people who don't have a criminal record. And at least one of our focus group members brought up ice detaining US citizens. Yeah, and I will say like overall, the majority of voters here say that they think ice is getting this right. It's eight out of the 14. But there were six people. I'm talking about six people who voted for Donald Trump with immigration being the key issue in the news. And Trump talking about immigration the way he was talking about immigration. They feel that ice is going too far. Here's a clip from one of those voters. His name is Hassan and he's an independent voter. He identifies as an independent. It's not just, quote unquote, dangerous folks that are getting deported. It's folks that are not dangerous. You know, folks is leading to people being profiled people. You know, if you have an accent, you're pretty much subject to ice going after you in some form of fashion. I should also note that we're going to be referring to these voters. They're their first names. That's part of the agreement that they signed when they signed up to do this focus group. Yeah. So a lot of voters felt like ice was getting kind of out of hand. But in general, I will say, I heard from a lot of independent voters specifically say that they were happy about specifically the border being closed. This was something that they were praising Trump about now. How immigration enforcement is going on in the interior seems to be a place where voters want to see some change. And we do know from polling, not from our focus group, that immigration has been Trump's best issue, except for now, some polls are showing that he's even under water on that. Well, it seems the recent shooting of for name Aclon Good. It felt like in the moment that that potentially could be one of these turning point moments on a key issue ahead of midterms. One thing that really struck me in these results from this focus group is that most of the people did not connect this shooting to Trump, even though obviously the president has really owned immigration and increased immigration enforcement and the shooting was done by an ice officer. These people did not seem to connect to the two things. Am I right? Right. It was two out of the 14 folks who said that Trump carries any blame for this. The reason I heard a lot is Trump can't control what individual ice agents do. Like, yes, you can send them over to do their job, but how they carry that out is an open question. They did, however, express a lot of concern about the training that ice officers are receiving. They have a lot of concerns about why that agent felt like taking out a gun and shooting someone so close was even warranted. Like a couple people said, like, why didn't you shoot the tire, you know, when when Renée Good was in her vehicle? So I mean, that is one place where, yes, Trump did play a role in sending ice agents out there, but the voters don't seem to connect that to what ended up happening. Our voters in this tiny sample. In this time, you gotta be careful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but this is really about just adding nuance to the numbers because the numbers support this that basically after the breakdown of how people felt about this shooting, there wasn't some universal understanding of how people should feel about this shooting. And I just note that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about this shooting and we're still awaiting the result of an investigation into exactly what happened. All right, let's take a quick break and more on all of this in just a moment. This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive, and up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get Wise, download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com, TZNC's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hulett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at huelett.org. And we're back. And Ashley, I want to talk about the economy now because this was a big part of why Donald Trump was elected in 2024. Voters concerns about rising prices in the broader direction of the country economically. What are voters saying right now? What are these voters saying right now? They feel really bad about the economy. A lot of voters said they feel more anxiety now about the economy than they did before Trump took office, even though they voted for Trump a lot of them with the hopes of the economy improving. There's one voter that I want to highlight, Kimberly, she's an independent voter. She is one of the many voters who said that this is one place where they do squarely blame Trump for how they feel. And in particular, she feels like Trump is not doing enough to address the concerns of working class people. You know, aside from gas being down, aside from the border being closed, those are two great things. But I really don't see the president speaking to working individuals. And I think working individuals are like an element that have been forgotten by both parties, but he's trying to get back at his political adversaries. I see a lot of that, but I don't see, you know, things really happening that's going to benefit the common person. And she even went on at one point to say that, you know, him focusing so much on political adversaries was another area where she's like, what is he doing? I want him to focus on, you know, pocketbook issues, you know, the economy, the things that I voted for him to solve. Do you feel like he's going to hear this message, Mara? I mean, if this group of voters who seem to be the reason he's in the White House are still really unhappy with his record on the economy or what he's doing on the economy, is he going to take that cue this year? Well, that's the big question. The White House certainly wants him to. They sent him out to event after event to talk about the economy and affordability and to explain exactly what he's going to do about it. And not just say how great the economy is because for voters who don't feel the economy is great, they don't like it when the politician tells them that there's something wrong with them that they can't see how great it is. So I think it's a real problem. I mean, the White House wants him and they said that he's going to be spending once a week going around the country to an event. Now we'll see if that actually happens. But the president these days seems much more interested in not just prosecuting his adversaries, but also in foreign policy. And that's something that our focus group wasn't thrilled about. They didn't mind the raid to get Maduro, but they weren't so happy with the idea of ongoing military interventions around the world. Was that based on like opinions about how America should be interacting with the world or the this idea that he's just distracted? I think it was a distraction. I think that's how the takeaway I had. I don't think these people were that clear as to why exactly we're doing these things that they did understand that Maduro was a bad guy. They were for removing him. But no, I think it was because it was a distraction, because he was so focused on that and not on the things that they care about. We did hear from Kimberly about gas prices going down. Other people in our focus group mentioned that. That's a plus for the president. On that one, it's working. Gas prices are coming down, but not a lot of other prices are coming down. Grace, who is one of our focus group participants, talked about the raid in Venezuela and other foreign policy interventions. And she connected it to her economic anxiety, which was so interesting to me. And Rich Tao is the moderator. You'll hear his voice in this clip. When the invasion occurred with Venezuela, no one in America had any idea that that was going to happen. We just turned on the news and they went in in darkness and it just happened. So now I feel like what's next? Like I have this feeling of I don't know what's going to happen next. And that's causing economic anxiety for you. Correct. Yeah. So that was so interesting to me because when things feel out of control or chaotic, this is not unlike COVID in Trump's first term. People took it out on him. And the question is, if everything stays easy, PC, and you can just pluck out Maduro or back away from taking over Greenland, I think it'll be okay. But these voters, their concern about trumping distracted is making them more worried about the economy. Yeah. Grace is a Republican self-identified Republican voter. And she overall likes the job that Trump is doing. But you know, this is something that Rich Tao told me has been a liability for Trump for a long time. The more he focuses on other things, swing voters are noticing. There's a concern that he's trying to do too much on too many things and he's not singularly focused on the thing that matters to most of them, which is their pocketbooks. Their frustration here is with the international activities, Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, go down the list. They think the president isn't focused on what matters most to them day to day. And I will also note one of these voters also talked about how they felt like they voted for him because they thought he was going to be a more isolationist president. And they're unhappy with the fact that he is making his presence known on the world stage in the way has. I mean, what can you guys say broadly about how these Trump voters feel about how Trump's doing in office one year in? I think that they haven't broken with him in a dramatic fashion. But they have a lot of concerns. And this isn't exactly what they thought they would be getting. I think there's a little buyer's remorse, but I'm not seeing the people who voted for him in 24 just abandoning him at least based on our group. Yeah, I mean, overall like eight of the 14 voters that we heard from, they said they disapprove of Trump's job performance so far. However, you would think with those kind of numbers, you would hear someone at least being, I don't know, Democrat curious or something. I did not get a sense of that, but I didn't hear that they were feeling any sort of remorse for their vote for Trump for the exception of maybe two people who said that they kind of wish they voted for Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. They also feel a lot of frustration towards the Democrats, which we heard in the beginning, you know, even though Trump is not doing what they want, I think a lot of them said, even when it comes to the economy, they're willing to wait and see. And I should know, when asked who they blame for the economy, a big chunk of them still blame Joe Biden for the state of the economy. Now they said, in a year, ask me that again, because I think that will be Trump's economy. Okay. And that's one of Trump's most repeated messages. So then moving forward, I mean, we're going to do this again in a month. Where are we headed, guys? And what are you going to be watching for? We're headed to Arizona. Well, we're not physically. These are Zoom focus groups. Yeah. These are Zoom focus groups, but we're going to be hearing from swing voters, of course, Biden in 2020, Trump in 2024 voters, but in Arizona. And what I'm going to be watching for is how much of their feelings about Trump, because let's face it, Trump is kind of all present to all the time. How much of that affects their choice for the midterms as they start turning their attention to it? He's not on the ballot in 2026, but because he's such an all encompassing figure and he kind of sucks all the oxygen out of the room, what I'm wondering is do their feelings about him affect their feelings about Republican candidates? All right. Well, we can leave it there for today. Be sure to join us tomorrow as we wrap up another busy week in Washington. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Laiasson, Senior National Political Correspondent. And thank you for listening to the M.P.R. Politics podcast. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hulett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hulett.org.
