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.

What is going well in America these days?

If you got money saved up, you’re getting rich with the interest rates being higher than normal.

People are looking out for each other more these days. During a certain administration, people were more sort of against one another.

Work-life balance is going well. Post-Covid and being able to work remote, that’s kind of helped work-life balance for people.

What’s not going so well?

Inflation, the high cost of living, cost of food, gas prices. Everything is up, you know?

Our economic outlook overall, you know? But over the last probably 10 administrations, our national deficit has just continually increased and increased and increased, and it’s not sustainable. Eventually, it’s going to crash the way we’re going.

I think we’re superpolarized. There’s too much party loyalty, and people are voting on these laws based off of party lines rather than what’s best for the American people.

Do you think the country is on the wrong track? [Everyone raises a hand.] OK. Here are five issues: The economy, immigration and the border, American democracy, abortion and the conflict between Israel and Gaza.

Bekki, let me come to you first. Why do you say “American democracy”?

America is known for being free and our freedoms and the rights that we have, the things that are protected by our Constitution. If we start to lose those things, then what is our country? It’s not America anymore.

I feel like the governing class has kind of lost sight of “we the people” and what they’re in office for, which is to protect our good and the good of our nation. At the grass-roots level, I would absolutely agree that people have each other’s backs. I think at the government level, it’s every person for themselves.

James, why was immigration most important to you?

Every state is feeling the effect of illegal immigration. And you have large cities, these sanctuary cities, that are now going broke because they’re spending millions upon millions of their dollars trying to put these people up in hotels, feeding them. And the people who are needing it, the Americans that are needing this money, are going without now.

Christi, you chose the economy as your top issue.

I’m a real estate agent, and the economy is really the No. 1 thing anyone’s talking about. There are certainly people who are doing well, but not very many in the grand scheme of things. I don’t understand how a family can even live these days. Everything is so expensive. Where we were putting money back into our communities, we don’t have that choice anymore.

Think back to the 2016 election between Trump and Hillary Clinton. Let’s talk about who you voted for and why.

I voted for Trump. And I voted primarily because he was a nonestablishment person. And I guess there is a little bit of entertainment value, not necessarily thinking he’d get elected. All that appealed to me, just as Robert Kennedy would appeal to me now.

I actually got disinvited to a couple of family get-togethers because I also voted for Trump. I’m an independent, but I vote Republican most of the time, for fiscal issues. We needed a change from people getting free money, doing nothing to earn that damn money. I just felt like I worked hard. I think people should do the same. Everything shouldn’t be handed to people just for no reason. And I thought Trump would change that. But that didn’t happen quite the way I thought it would.

I did vote for Trump — not because I thought he was, like, a supergreat person. I just felt like he was the lesser of two evils.

How about the 2020 election?

I voted for Donald Trump in 2020. He felt like the lesser of two evils, and I was looking at the economy over the previous four years. It was pretty strong, so I was hoping to continue that. Joe Biden has had some alleged dealings and things like that, which kind of really drove my decision.

Great. Andrew, could I ask you just a quick follow-up in terms of the economy under President Trump? Could you speak to how, if at all, the economy benefited you personally during those four years or some of the years? Anything that particularly was good for you in the Trump economy?

Sure. So I had just graduated college at the time. I went into a finance job. So I was having a solid income, and I was investing a large portion of that into retirement accounts and just stocks to save. And that portfolio grew much more that four years than it has in the prior four years. So it was growing pretty strongly, as well as food prices were down, gas prices were down, kind of everything was much more attainable.

I had originally voted for Donald Trump, because he was kind of that Molotov cocktail. I wanted to shake things up. And I feel like he was still that in 2020, but a little less. But there wasn’t enough for me to go to vote for Biden.

I voted for Trump because I couldn’t vote for Biden. More so than anything, I felt he was too old and not in great health.

What’s one word you’d use to describe how you’re........

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