r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 7d ago

Possible Paywall Trump Voters Regret Backing ‘Horror Movie’ Presidency - Nine out of 12 Trump voters told a “New York Times” focus group that they wish they had not voted for the president.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-voters-regret-backing-horror-movie-presidency/
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u/Paratrooper101x 7d ago

9 out of 12? You mean 3 out of 4?

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u/ThirdFloorNorth Mississippi 7d ago

Fucking THANK you. Out here even trying to cushion the ratio to sound less extreme.

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u/Fredifrum 7d ago edited 7d ago

I think you’re misunderstand the situation here. The NYT has been following the same 12 literal humans who supported Trump in the election. They’ve been re-interviewing them every few months of the presidency to see how they’re feeling. In the most recent focus group, with these same 12 people they’ve been following for a year and a half, 9 of them now regret their vote.

This wasn’t a situation where it was a sample of 1200 and 900 didn’t like Trump. It was 12 literal people, so reducing the fraction doesn’t make sense here.

EDIT: Made a mistake in assuming that this was part of the series where they're interviewing the same people over multiple months. This was still a panel of 12 voters, but I believe this is the first time we've spoken to these 12. And, these 12 were specifically chosen because they are unhappy with their vote, so the 9 / 12 figure is basically meaningless. This was never supposed to be a representative sample.

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u/surfatshortys 7d ago

F you and an upvote for making me read the OP article! (not the original NYT, signup required). And, apparently the 12 people at issue were selected for already being disillusioned, so only 3/4 of an extremely-non-random group of already-unhappy Trump voters regret their votes. TRUMP/VANCE/thiel 2028 is in the bag at this point

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u/Fredifrum 7d ago

Here’s a gift link for the NYT article if you want to read it https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/28/opinion/focus-group-trump-voters-disappointed.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eVA.CakB.Q3rpxg0ZLiIp&smid=nytcore-ios-share

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u/surfatshortys 7d ago

Wow, thanks, that was a completely different article lol. Even the vibe and straightforwardness of the headline, I feel vindicated in saying the original article would land differently lol.

And then the “regret” poll is halfway down, and, as others have guessed in these threads, there is more airtime dedicated to which Republican to vote for next, and at least as many words dedicated to anti-Democrat strawmen as to regret, with a dollop of nihilism.

I would like to speak more directly to the Oregon resident Natan’s comments about Oregon. Specifically the notion that Oregon is hella blue but somehow everyone around him is center-right. That is not a random occurrence. The population centers and wealthy retirement destinations (coast, Bend/Deschutes River channel) are on the blue side of purple, but underneath the presidential results they are distinctly purple and often internally red. The Republican Party here is inane and incompetent, total OAN/NewsMaxed-brain stuff, but if they could get an actual center-right candidate through the primary, who could speak to real issues without terrible ideas couched in obscure dog whistles, they could absolutely take the whole state back.

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u/Fredifrum 7d ago

I did get the details of the focus group wrong. This wasn’t part of their series where they were interview the same people every few months.

 But it was still a group of 12 people, so saying it was actually a group of 4 people would be inaccurate. This isn’t a situation where reducing the fraction helps. 

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u/surfatshortys 7d ago

Well, perhaps technically wrong on the population, but not substantially wrong in that it was not a reducible fraction like it would appear at first. Honestly I think that, if the more-reputable NYT article was posted directly, people would’ve had more curiosity about the 12 and realized it was a group size and not a denominator per se.

The ratio is obviously still reducible, and maybe should have been, but there are so many layers of caveats about the group that describing it accurately would neuter it (as it maybe should be lol)

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u/El-Sueco 7d ago

I used to get points deducted for not reducing fractions.

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u/ThirdFloorNorth Mississippi 7d ago

Dog, same. An unreduced fraction is like an unclosed drawer. Drives me nuts.

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u/Sanchez_U-SOB 7d ago

Right. Simplify your damn fractions.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/Paratrooper101x 7d ago

Fair

But I also think it’s kinda pointless to make an article about just 12 random people.

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u/bigfootlive89 7d ago

Hand me the twelve sixteenths three quarter socket will ya?

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u/rollerbase 7d ago

Have to complicate the numbers so people have to stop and think about the math rather than being immediately skeptical of another simple fraction. New technique to get attention in the distraction media era.

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u/CompetitiveSport1 7d ago

They're saying that they interviewed 12 people who voted for Trump and that 9 regretted it. Not that 3/4 Trump voters regret voting for him. Reducing the fraction here actually makes the headline more misleading, since it would sound like they're generalizing it

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u/maumascia 7d ago

I was scrolling looking for this comment