Frank Luntz is a credible pollster and has been around for decades. Once the enfant terrible working for Ross Perot in 1992, he has settled into solid workaday respectability. Fox News hired him to poll voters for their reaction to Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate. The verdict was clear. Mike Pence was the clear-cut winner.

Luntz commented, “Voters found Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris to be ‘abrasive and condescending’ at various points throughout Wednesday’s debate with Vice President Mike Pence.” Luntz surveyed the reactions of undecided voters from eight battleground states.

“The complaint about Mike Pence was that he was too tired, but [he was] vice presidential, or presidential,” said Luntz. “If this is a battle over style and substance — which is often the case with undecided voters because they simply do not choose on policy, they also choose on persona — this was Mike Pence’s night.”

Luntz: “It’s not that Pence did so well, it’s that they [voters] felt both candidates were not answering the questions as well as they would have liked. They really did not like the ducking of questions, but they were so much happier with this debate than they were the first one. The first one to them was embarrassing. This one, at least, they had the decorum. But the frustration … was [that] ‘They’re ducking the question, they are pivoting…Harris’ reactions to Pence — the smiling, the smirking, the scowling” left them far ‘angrier’ with her performance.”

Did literally no one bother to focus group Kamala Harris' smug head bob thing to see how it goes over with actual humans?

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 8, 2020

“Voters do not like it when candidates run long, and when they run long every time, they think that’s an example of being undisciplined and unfocused. However, they were more agitated with Kamala’s presentation than they were with Mike Pence…It was clear that Mike Pence was the winner of tonight’s confrontation.”

That seems to be the consensus even amongst Democrats. Norah O’Donnell of CBS was particularly impressed by Pence. Where Harris took the most hits, and thus probably lost the evening, was with female voters. Her smug smile and vocal fry set teeth on edge across the spectrum. But females especially seemed to be annoyed, some saying Harris reminded them of their husband’s first wife.

This piece was written by David Kamioner on October 9, 2020. It originally appeared in DrewBerquist.com and is used by permission.

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