Dr. Frank I. Luntz
American Political and Communications Consultant and Pollster
Frank Luntz is one of the most honored communication professionals in America today. “The Nostradamus of pollsters,” said Sir David Frost, while Time magazine named him one of “50 of America’s most promising leaders aged 40 and under,” Newsweek magazine identified him as No. 24 on their American Power Elite survey, and a New York Post headline declared, “Frank Luntz is the world’s most influential man in politics.” He finished 87th in a Time magazine global poll of the “most influential people in the world.” Frank was named one of the four “Top Research Minds” by Business Week, “the hottest pollster” by The Boston Globe, “pollster extraordinaire” by the BBC, and was a winner of The Washington Post’s coveted “Crystal Ball” award for being the most accurate pundit, and “the person you turn to for the truth” by Bloomberg News. His focus groups have become so influential that Barack Obama had this to say following the PBS presidential debate: “When Frank Luntz invites you to talk to his focus group, you talk to his focus group.”
More media outlets have turned to Dr. Luntz to understand the hopes and fears of Americans than to any other political pollster; he is also among the most quoted pollsters globally. The “Instant Response” focus group technique he pioneered has been profiled on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America (on Election Day), the BBC, and on PBS’s award-winning Frontline. He has been a guest on virtually every talk show in America, including multiple appearances on Meet the Press, Nightline, The Today Show, HBO, The PBS News Hour, Face the Nation, Good Morning Britain, and Bill Maher.
For more than a decade, Frank was the “Focus Group Czar” for Fox News. In both 2011 and 2015, Frank was the only non-journalist invited to host a debate of the GOP presidential contenders. Frank also served for five years as a news analyst for CBS News, focusing on corporate and business communications, moving to ABC News in 2017. He was a consultant to the NBC hit show The West Wing as well as the popular CBS drama Bull.
Dr. Luntz was a debate, election day and impeachment commentator on Bloomberg, CNBC and the BBC in 2020, CBS in 2016, Fox News in 2008 and 2012, and MSNBC in 2000. His reoccurring segments on MSNBC/CNBC, “100 Days, 1000 Voices” won the coveted Emmy Award in 2001. Frank has conducted focus groups for all three broadcast networks, two of the three cable news channels and PBS, as well as for The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Times of London, the LA Times, and the BBC. He has worked in every British General Election from 1997 through 2015 and in the Brexit referendum, where he conducted the most accurate final poll of UK voters.
Dr. Luntz has written, supervised, and conducted more than 2,500 surveys, focus groups, ad tests, and dial sessions for more than 50 Fortune 500 companies and CEOs in more than two dozen countries and six continents over the past 30 years. His political and communication knowledge and skills are recognized globally, and he has served as a consultant and commentator in Canada, Britain, Israel, the UAE, Ireland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Ukraine. Over the past two years, Frank has visited more than a half-dozen countries on behalf of the U.S. State Department.
Frank is the author of three New York Times Best Sellers. Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say it’s What People Hear, explores the art and science of language creation. His second book, What Americans Really Want … Really, addresses the private hopes, dreams and fears of the American people; it reached No. 18 on the bestseller list. His most recent book, WIN, reached No. 2 on Amazon and No. 3 on The New York Times Business Best Seller List in its first month in print. He has written about the power of language for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, The Times of London, The Washington Post, and Time.
From 1989 until 1996, he was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at Harvard University and George Washington University. Since 2018, he has taught two courses a year at NYU Abu Dhabi, and he is visiting professor for USC in 2021. Frank graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an honors BA degree in history and political science. He was awarded a Thouron Fellowship and received his Doctorate in Politics at the age of 25 from Oxford University. He spoke for 24 straight hours as part of the Oxford
Union Society’s Guinness World Book of Records debate. In 1993, Frank was named a Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, the second-youngest individual ever to receive this honor at that time.