Opinion | 10 Trump Defectors Discuss the Former President

If we’ve seen an enduring trend from the Republican presidential primaries this winter, it’s that a sizable fraction of G.O.P. voters don’t want Donald Trump as their nominee again. Why is that? And what do these people — who made up 20 to 30 percent of primary voters in some states — think of the Republican Party and the issues facing the country?

For our latest Times Opinion focus group, we gathered 10 independents and Republicans who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 but who aren’t supporting him this time around to explore when he lost them.

What’s clear is that Mr. Trump is no longer the outsider voice that resonated with these voters in 2016. Some said that role has been taken on by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They are responding pretty viscerally to things he has said and to his antiestablishment, beholden-to-nobody image. Indeed, a major takeaway from the focus group is that the Kennedy factor in this election should be taken pretty seriously in the swing states where he’s likely to make the ballot this fall.

For several in the group, the Republican Party has become MAGA nation, and it’s too hard line and hard right — and, some said, hateful — to be a political home for them. As for losing faith in Mr. Trump, some of the voters described how his taking top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago was a turning point for them, and others mentioned the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Still, their concerns about him do not necessarily make Mr. Biden or Democrats look better by comparison. For all but one of these voters, Mr. Trump’s shortcomings do not translate into increased support for Mr. Biden at this point.

But could Mr. Biden win some of them over, especially those whose top issue in this election is protecting and defending democracy? We put that question to these lapsed Trump voters, and the scale of Mr. Biden’s challenge was clear in their answers.