Anti-Trump Pollster Admits He’d Place $150K Bet on Donald Trump Winning

An anti-Trump pollster said he would place a $150,000 bet on former President Donald Trump winning the 2024 general election.

Frank Luntz, who has more than 20 years of experience as political commentator and pollster, has covered multiple United States elections on national networks including, CBS, Fox News and MSNBC. The Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper, interviewed Luntz in 2021, where he said he no longer considers himself a Republican in the wake of the Trump presidency.

“What’s different now that did not exist before is a sense of revenge and that is Donald Trump – he put that into the chemical mix,” he told the outlet.

In a viral video shared on social media by Collin Rugg, the co-owner of the Trending Politics news website, Luntz discusses whether he’d bet on Trump returning to the White House. The clip amassed more than 3.7 million views on X, formerly Twitter, since it was posted on Saturday morning.

Luntz is asked: “If you had to bet $150,000 on who’s gonna win in November, who would you bet on?”

“I never dreamed that I would say this, but I would bet on Trump,” Luntz responded. “I thought it was done. I thought it was over.”

“You don’t come back from an impeachment,” the pollster said. “You don’t come back from January 6th. You don’t come back from any of this, but he’s come back. The guy’s a survivor and his opponent is having so much trouble that I would at this point give the edge to Trump.”

Newsweek reached out to Luntz via online form and Trump’s and Biden’s campaigns via email for comment.

Trump’s base, known as MAGA from his Make American Great movement that he has campaigned on since his successful 2016 presidential run, has remained loyal to the former president despite him being impeached twice during his presidency and being a defendant in multiple criminal indictments, including a federal election subversion case in Washington, D.C.

In August 2023, Trump was indicted by the Justice Department on four federal felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights, all stemming from his actions surrounding the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has claimed that the case is politically motivated.

Meanwhile, Trump’s critics have claimed that he is unfit to be president, citing the 91 federal counts across four criminal cases against him, all of which he pleaded not guilty to, and the threat he supposedly poses to democracy following his actions surrounding the January 6 riot.

On that fateful day in 2021, Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win after Trump made claims that the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud, despite there being a lack of evidence to support such claims.

President Biden, the Democratic incumbent who is likely going to have a rematch with Trump in 2024, has faced criticism himself for how he is handling the economy with rising prices and high inflation and immigration with a surge in illegal migrant crossings at the southern border.

Americans are fairly split on how Biden is handling of the economy with 48 percent disapproving of the job he is doing and 44 percent approving, according to a poll by The Economist/YouGov that was conducted between January 7 and 9. Meanwhile, more Americans are disappointed with how Biden is handling the country’s borders with 56 percent disapproving of the way Biden’s handling immigration and only 33 percent approving. The poll surveyed 1,593 U.S. adult citizens and had a margin of error of 3.2 percent (adjusted for weighting) and 2.9 percent (registered voters).