'She seemed like a Stepford wife': Katie Britt's SOTU response panned by focus group

GOP strategist and publisher of The Bulwark Sarah Longwell appeared on CNN's "NewsNight" with Abby Phillip late Friday explain what was on display following President Joe Biden's State of the Union address was a coordinated effort centered on Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL).

"The fact is, they have been hemorrhaging college-educated suburban women and you could just tell from the way that this was staged from the sitting in the kitchen, the way she was coached to use that breathy voice, because that's not how she normally talks," Longwell said. "She's a serious person. She is a good senator, a sharp person."

During her speech while seated at a kitchen table, Britt stated “the free world deserves better than a dithering and diminished leader. America deserves leaders who recognize that secure borders, stable prices, safe streets and a strong defense are the cornerstones of a great nation.”

And while not name-dropping former President Donald Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, she pointed to the nation facing a decision: “I know which choice our children deserve — and the choice the Republican Party is fighting for.”

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Longwell believes the attempt to cast Britt as a dutiful all-American housewife talking meat and potatoes topics backfired.

"I mean, I think that they have this idea of sort of traditional women who are wives and mothers who are, you know, worried about the Border, worried about the economy, worried about kitchen table issues," she said. "And they thought that this was going to appeal to them."

The response appears to have generated a lot of eyebrow-raising. And Longwell even took the pulse of a focus group composed of swing voters.

She said she asked them what they thought of Britt's speech and "the number one word that I heard was 'weird.'"

The group found her "tonally off" and her smiles "didn't match what she was saying."

Longwell flagged one participant in the focus group who said Britt came off "like a Stepford wife."

"I think a lot of viewers who were watching it were confused because it just it just landed as terribly inauthentic," she said. "And this is what the problem is, is that Katie Britt is a talented, normal person, but they wanted to sort of slot her in."