Biden-to-Trump swing voters sour on Trump in a year of monthly focus groups

Sessions also find economic populism support and worries about data centers

NPR reported the findings on Oct. 30, just ahead of Election Day, capping a year in which the network said it had a front-row seat to how these voters think — listening as voters in different swing states reflected on President Trump, the political issues that matter to them, and who they might vote for going forward.

The voters in question supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then swung to backing Trump in 2024. All of them participated in the Swing Voter Project, which hosts online focus groups every month. The sessions are run by the messaging firm Engagious and the market research recruiting firm Nelson Recruiting. NPR is a partner on the project, and the network’s Ashley Lopez reported the takeaways.

NPR described swing voters as rare — a crucial sliver of the electorate who help determine which candidates win. The project is built to track how they think across the course of a year rather than at a single moment.

The first of the five takeaways was the speed of the turn. These Biden-to-Trump voters quickly soured on the president, according to the project.

The second takeaway tied policy to pocketbook. Voters in the groups are able to draw a direct line from Trump’s decisions to their feelings about the economy, NPR reported.

The third was a warning for the opposition. Displeasure with the president did not translate into warmth toward the Democratic Party, which the network reported is not popular with these voters either.

The fourth takeaway was a narrowing of the ideological gap. There appears to be a convergence among voters on the left and right in support of economic populism, according to NPR’s account of the sessions.

The fifth was a shared technology worry. The network found broad concern about artificial intelligence and the proliferation of data centers, a topic that surfaced across the monthly groups.

The findings came with a companion broadcast. NPR said an hour-long discussion of the five takeaways and the voters, titled “Swing voters and the issues that matter,” was available alongside the written piece. That special was edited by Ben Swasey and produced by Lexie Schapitl.

The project’s output was presented as a year of listening to the same slice of the electorate, released in the final days before voters go to the polls. NPR organized its summary around what changed for these voters during 2026 and the direction of the change: away from the president they had backed, toward an economic argument, and with little enthusiasm for the party that had once won them.