GEOFF BENNETT: New insight tonight into a group of voters that helped swing the 2024 presidential race, those that voted for Democrats in prior elections, but for Donald Trump this past November.

The analysis comes from recent focus groups conducted by Republican strategist Sarah Longwell.

She joins us now with more on what led these voters to shift political allegiances.

Thanks for being here.

SARAH LONGWELL, Longwell Partners: Yes, thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So our team pored over the hours of tape that you recorded with this group of voters.

And a common refrain seems to be, as expressed by this group, that at least Donald Trump is doing something.

Here's what Monty from New York had to say.

MONTY, Trump Voter: I think he's running the country like a business.

So what happens if management steps into a business for the first time?

Shut everything down.

Let's see the books.

Let's look at everything.

Let's see what needs to stop being spent on and what.

So I understand that.

It sounds scary, the funding freeze.

And I know it does -- it does, like, shake up a lot of industries or a lot of places.

But it's something that needs to be happening.

GEOFF BENNETT: How did this group respond to some of the specific actions President Trump has taken, the dismantling of government agencies, the mass deportations, the pardons for January 6 defenders?

SARAH LONGWELL: Yes, well, look, those are all different issues.

But I think one of the things that you have to understand about a lot of these voters is that they can't disentangle all of the crazy news stories, right?

So they tend to just take it in general as an assessment of, does it feel like things are moving?

Does it feel like things are happening?

And I do think, contrasted with a lot of frustrations I heard from voters just going back six months ago with Joe Biden was, hey, I don't feel like I hear him.

Don't feel like I see him.

And so the way that Donald Trump just kind of gets in people's faces and hits people with tons of information, tons of action, they're not necessarily there to adjudicate, is it a good action or a bad action?

They just know stuff is happening.

And so they say, well, I'm seeing ICE trucks in my community.

And I'm glad it means they're doing something about immigration.

And the January 6 pardons, that's such an interesting one to me, because it's people don't like the January 6 pardons, but it's not a deeply held conviction.

They're sort of like, well, I wish he hadn't done it, but whatever.

Like, it's just one of those things that doesn't sit with them as a really important issue.

And so I think that right now Donald Trump is benefiting with the people who kind of took a flier on him because they were frustrated with Joe Biden and the Democrats.

And they're -- so far, they're saying, OK, he gets a honeymoon period, I'm waiting to see what he does.

And, so far, I like what I'm seeing because what I'm seeing is movement.

GEOFF BENNETT: This group, how do they know what they know?

What are their information sources?

How are they getting their news?

SARAH LONGWELL: Yes, well, I mean, even over the years that I have been doing focus groups, which is really since Donald Trump came on the scene, so in the last eight years, I have just seen such a total shift in the media environment and the way that people consume media.

So, for a long time, you really did hear people say that they were still getting a lot of their news from local news.

But now it's just almost entirely podcasts, scrolling on their phone.

They catch bits on social media.

They don't live on Twitter or X or necessarily social media platforms, but maybe they follow things like -- about wellness or about health or about working out, and they get their politics kind of infused in that, or they get politics infused in the sports podcast they listen to.

And so the way that people are sort of putting together their information sources now is just pulling a little bit from here and a little bit from there in this very fragmented media environment.

GEOFF BENNETT: You also asked them about DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which President Trump campaigned heavily against and is now rooting out.

What stands out to me is the way in which this group seems to have adopted Donald Trump's view on this, that diversity and competence are somehow mutually exclusive.

Here's what Steve from Las Vegas and Brian from Tucson had to say.

STEVE, Trump Voter: I don't want like to be hired just because I'm Black.

I want to get hired because I deserve the job.

At the same time, I can understand why in certain career fields or certain industries, there might be a need for more inclusion of diversity.

But I'm not for including that diversity at the risk of having quality workers.

BRIAN, Trump Voter: When you're talking about government places like fire department, when you're talking about things that are there to save lives, right, you want the best of the best, right?

I want the best firepower.

Of all the firefighters, I want the top ones if I'm going to be safe.

GEOFF BENNETT: So how did this issue in particular resonate among those voters you spoke with?

SARAH LONGWELL: Well, look, I got to tell you, this is something I hear across the board from voters, and it includes a lot of Democratic voters, where they just -- they don't love -- it's not just DEI.

It's sort of you hear a lot of these different words.

Sometimes, it's DEI.

Sometimes, it's woke.

But voters are sort of -- they seem to want to push past this era of kind of segmenting people.

And this is one where I think Democrats maybe just lost the cultural conversation a little bit on this.

And voters even when -- because there's a lot of voters who don't like the way Donald Trump talks about people or don't like the way that Republicans talk about people.

But they will still say things like, I just don't think there's 1,000 genders or I wish we talked less about these issues.

I want to focus on issues like the economy or on immigration.

And so it's just something that falls flat with voters, not just Republican voters, but often voters across the board.

GEOFF BENNETT: You mentioned the issue of gender, which President Trump often refers to as gender ideology.

That also came up in these focus groups.

Here is Karin from Arizona.

KARIN, Trump Voter: When my daughter was in the fifth grade, they had this whole conversation about what your pronouns are.

And so, like, I was routinely like scolded for not respecting my daughter's pronouns as they/them.

And I'm like, that's not something that's going to happen in this house.

I gave birth to a daughter.

It says it on her birth certificate.

She's a girl.

This is the same girl who wanted to be Spider-Man three years before that.

So she doesn't have the capability of deciding what she wants for breakfast, let alone adding a penis.

GEOFF BENNETT: You know, given the way that Donald Trump in particular in Republicans more broadly have really changed the parameters of the debate around some of these cultural issues, how does that complicate the effort that Democrats now have in trying to win back voters and in trying to go on the offensive on some of these issues?

SARAH LONGWELL: Well, it's a little complicated, in the sense that, yes, you hear a lot of -- I hear a ton of voters talking this way, where the sort of new way that people are talking about gender and identity just doesn't sit well with them.

At the same time, they do not like the cruelty.

They don't -- there are a lot of voters who say, look, I think Donald Trump's going too far in how he demonizes people or in how he talks about people.

I don't think it's kind.

I don't think it's decent.

And so I think Donald Trump is going so far into DEI -- I mean, the extent to which he blamed DEI, for example, for those horrific plane crashes in Washington, D.C., that is not something that lands with voters.

And so I do think that Democrats should really focus on the places where Donald Trump is going to excess on these issues, where they are obsessing over them.

I mean, right now, certainly, Trump and his administration are doing far more rooting out things around gender ideology than they are in the economy.

And voters care much more about the economy than they do about sort of singling people out.

And so I think they're -- I think Democrats have to figure out how to stop defending some things that are deeply unpopular or even just focusing on things that are broadly unpopular with voters and instead focus on things that matter.

But I think it's fair for them to point out the places where Donald Trump is being unnecessarily cruel and targeting groups of people, because voters don't like that either.

GEOFF BENNETT: Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, thanks again for joining us.

SARAH LONGWELL: Thanks for having me.