Text search component not matching on exact, just partial

Thank you for those screenshots. I mirrored those settings on the Contact return object, and wasn’t able to reproduce the behavior you’re describing. 

It’s strange that you’re only seeing this happen with older contacts, who were created by users that are now inactive. Is the issue exclusively happening with those contacts? And, when you see ‘no results found,’ is there any error showing in the browser’s developer console? 

Also, does the behavior happen in standard Salesforce as well, or only on the Skuid page?