Demographics

Whit Ayres, March 9

March 11, 2021 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times regarding Hispanic voting patterns:

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, whose firm, North Star Opinion Research, has studied Hispanic partisan allegiance, wrote in an email that Latinos are far more flexible in their voting than African-Americans:

“As a general rule, about 50 percent of Hispanics vote fairly consistently for Democrats, 25 percent vote for Republicans and the remaining 25 percent are up for grabs.”

In the Latino electorate, Ayres said, “many are sensitive to charges of socialism because of their country of origin. Many are sensitive to law-and-order issues. And many are cultural conservatives, as Reagan argued years ago.”
As a result, Ayres continued,

“When white liberal Democrats start talking about defunding the police, the Green New Deal and promoting policies that can be described as socialistic, they repel a lot of Hispanic voters. In other words, most Hispanics, like most African-Americans, are not ideological liberals.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, Hispanic Voters, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Republicans

Whit Ayres, March 4

March 4, 2021 by North Star

Whit Ayres in The New York Times on the Republican Party and working-class voters:

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster whose clients have included Mr. Rubio, was critical of Democrats for not seeking a compromise on the stimulus after a group of G.O.P. senators offered a smaller package. “Seven Republican senators voted to convict a president of their own party,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s impeachment. “If you can’t get any of them on a Covid program, you’re not trying real hard.”
As the Covid-19 relief package, which every House Republican voted down, makes its way through the Senate this week, Republicans are expected to offer further proposals aimed at struggling Americans.
Mr. Ayres said that the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., last weekend, the first major party gathering since Mr. Trump left office, had been a spectacularly missed opportunity in its failure to include meaningful discussion of policies for blue-collar voters. Instead, the former president advanced an intraparty civil war by naming in his speech on Sunday a hit list of every Republican who voted to impeach him.
“You’d better be spending a lot more time developing an economic agenda that benefits working people than re-litigating a lost presidential election,” Mr. Ayres said. “The question is, how long will it take the Republicans to figure out that driving out heretics rather than winning new converts is a losing strategy right now?”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Republicans

Whit Ayres, December 8

December 10, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times on voting patterns in the Atlanta suburbs:

Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster in Georgia, said Republican erosion in the inner suburbs — and to a lesser degree the conservative exurbs — has blunted the advantage Republicans have enjoyed in runoff elections in the past. While white evangelicals and religious conservatives remain a core of the Republican base, and make up a portion of the suburban electorate, some Republicans worry such issue-driven voters may be put off by the Senators’ willingness to dip into Trump-induced conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Mr. Ayres said both sides have hurdles to overcome before January. Republicans have a president who is sowing discord within their party and Democrats need to mobilize communities that have typically sat out nonpresidential elections. They can’t, he said, count on the same coalition that turned out in November.
“Are these now permanent Democratic voters? No, not at all,” he said. “They’re in transition, and they were put off in large part by the conduct and behavior of the President.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, Georgia, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

Outlook for 2020 Elections

November 2, 2020 by North Star

Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Independent Voters, Political Climate, Presidential Contest, Trump

Whit Ayres, October 25

October 26, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times regarding changing demographics and political contribution patterns:

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who studies demographic trends, said “the donations mirror voting patterns,” as white voters with college degrees have swung sharply toward the Democrats in the last decade, with the trend expected to accelerate further in 2020 with Mr. Trump on the ticket.
“It makes perfect sense,” Mr. Ayres said of the donation data. “Basically, Republicans have traded larger, more upscale, fast-growing suburban counties for smaller, down-scale, slower-growing rural counties. That’s not a promising trend for future victories.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Republicans

Whit Ayres, September 16

September 16, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in the New Statesman about changing demographics and their electoral impact in Arizona and Texas:

“The narrative [that the states will swing this year] persists because of the constantly changing demographics of the Sun Belt,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research. In particular, as Ben Walker wrote elsewhere in the New Statesman, Hispanic voters are growing in number, especially in Arizona and Texas.
Arizona and Texas are “at different stages of their evolution”, Ayres said. Arizona is much further along than Texas. In Arizona, Democrats could pick up another Senate seat (one Arizona Senate seat is already held by a Democrat) and “maybe even [carry] the state at the presidential level”.
Texas, he said, is a cycle or two away from going Democratic, “but given the massive uncertainty created by the pandemic, nothing would surprise me in electoral outcomes” in the state.
“The fact that we are even talking about Arizona, Texas… possibly going Democratic really demonstrates the impact of demographic change,” Ayres added, “and increases exponentially the importance for Republicans of reaching out aggressively to new non-white voters.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, Hispanic Voters, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest

Whit Ayres, July 17

July 17, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments to National Public Radio regarding Republicans and demographic changes:

The party is indeed in danger of losing power as a consequence of not having followed the autopsy’s recommendations, according to Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
“For the most part, the Republican Party has done the opposite of what was recommended in the 2013 autopsy,” he said. “That’s part of the reason why so many rapidly changing demographic states are now in play for the Democrats that used to be solidly Republican — states like Arizona and Texas and Georgia and North Carolina.”
Trump found short-term success, he says, but at a cost, as America’s electorate grows more diverse with every passing year.
“For the Republican Party to be successful in the long run. It’s going to have to adapt to a changing America, not react against it,” he added.

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest, Republicans, Trump

Whit Ayres, July 15

July 15, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in USA Today about the Trump campaign’s television buying strategy:

Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who has worked for Sens. Marco Rubio, Lamar Alexander and Lindsey Graham, said the Trump campaign’s decision to make early television pushes in Georgia, Iowa and Ohio was “smart” and reflects that more states are up for grabs than 2016.
“We have a lot more states that are in play today because Republicans have become significantly weaker in suburban areas at the same time they’ve become stronger in rural areas. And because of demographic changes that are occurring throughout the Sun Belt that have been ongoing for some years,” Ayres said, referring to Georgia and Texas.

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, Hispanic Voters, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Contest, Republicans

Whit Ayres, July 4

July 6, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Washington Post regarding growing the Republican coalition:

“The president’s base is locked in. They love him, they’re going to turn out and they’re going to vote for him,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said. “The problem is that the base is not enough to win. You can make a case that protecting Confederate monuments is very popular among at least a portion of his base, but it does nothing to expand the coalition, and that’s the imperative at the moment and will be going forward if the party hopes to govern.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, Independent Voters, News Clips, Republicans

Dan Judy, June 30

June 30, 2020 by North Star

Dan Judy’s comments in The Hill regarding the Republican Party, President Trump, and race:

Another Republican strategist, Dan Judy, noted that there were real implications for Trump, and to some extent the broader GOP, with key voting blocs.
Racially charged rhetoric from the president, Judy said, “hurts [the GOP] among key constituencies that it desperately needs: suburban voters — and white suburban women, to be very specific. It also energizes nonwhite voters against the president. So it is potentially a double whammy at the presidential level.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest, Republicans, Trump