AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, as the war in Iran drags on, it has been dragging down President Trump's approval ratings. A new focus group of swing voters, observed exclusively by NPR, finds broad displeasure with the president's handling of that war. NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is here to tell us more. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
CHANG: OK, so tell us more about this focus group.
LIASSON: These are monthly focus groups. They're conducted by the research firms Engagious and Sago. And every month, we choose a different battleground state. These are all swing voters, defined as people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, then swung to Donald Trump in 2024. And I want to stress, as we do every month, focus groups are not statistically significant like a poll.
CHANG: Right.
LIASSON: Polls tell us what voters are feeling. Focus groups tell us why they're feeling it. We know from polling voters disapprove of the war, and now we heard some interesting responses about why they do last night.
CHANG: OK. Tell us more about these interesting responses.
LIASSON: Most of these voters - there are 13 of them; they all live in Georgia - disapprove of the president and the Iran war, and they basically said a version of this. This is a voter named Dawn (ph). In this focus group, we use first names only.
DAWN: Why have you gotten us into so many things outside our borders when there's so much we need to take care of inside our own?
LIASSON: This sounds like a Trump ad - take care of America first. In some sense, these voters felt a betrayal from the president. Here's Nick (ph).
NICK: I'm very antiwar. And initially, I was led on to believe that he was also very antiwar, but that hasn't necessarily been played out.
LIASSON: Now, some of these voters were happy with a few aspects of the Trump administration's policies, like getting the southern border under control. But most felt there was a real misalignment between what they feel President Trump is prioritizing and what they want him to prioritize.
CHANG: Interesting. And what is it that they want him to prioritize? Like, Dawn specifically said taking care of our own. What does that mean?
LIASSON: That's right. They want him to take care of the economy. They're expressing a lot of anxiety about the economy. All the participants said they're more anxious about the economy now than when President Trump took office. Here's a voter named Joe (ph).
JOE: I see my pocketbook being hit, and he's building a new ballroom for some reason that we don't need, you know? How about you put some money toward us?
LIASSON: Yeah, put some money toward us. So the war is making these voters more anxious. They know there's a direct link between the war and gas prices going up, and they want him to fix that because he promised to fix that.
CHANG: Right. Well, I mean, there is a two-week ceasefire in effect now, but it is unclear still how the war in Iran will formally, if ever, end. Did the focus group participants talk about the war itself and how it's going?
LIASSON: Yes, they did, and I want to play some tape from a voter named Natalie (ph). She approves of Donald Trump. She says, on balance, the Iran war was the right thing to do. But she's very confused about his decision-making and about the endgame. Here she is.
NATALIE: There's no clear decision-making. There's no clear policy. Oh, I might kill everyone. I might not. We might have a revolution. The current new regime - like, the new ayatollah - might be better. Who knows?
LIASSON: Yeah, and another voter said that Trump was an agent of chaos when it comes to the war, and it scares him. He says, I feel like Trump went into this war without a real plan. And this is a problem for the president because presidents - Donald Trump or any other president - are supposed to make American citizens feel safe and secure, both in terms of national security but also in terms of the economy. And that just isn't happening with these voters.
CHANG: OK, so broad displeasure, but do we know how this might affect their votes this fall, like for the midterm elections?
LIASSON: Well, you know, this is something that we're getting at - we get at in every focus group as we get closer to the midterms in November. We're going to get more clear answers on this. Most of these voters said that how they feel about Donald Trump and the war would not affect their vote for Senate or governor or Congress but that there is an element of antiestablishment, anti-incumbent feeling, and that's not good for Republicans.
CHANG: That is NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you, Mara.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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