Whit Ayres’ comments in USA Today regarding immigration and presidential politics:

Indeed, Republican efforts to appeal to Hispanics, seen as promising targets because they often are culturally conservative, has been undercut by unyielding views toward undocumented workers. “Immigration is not the most important issue to Hispanic voters — jobs and the economy lead by a mile — but it’s a gateway issue that sends a signal to Hispanics,” says Ayres, who published a book this year titled 2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America.

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Whit Ayres’ comments in the Wall Street Journal about immigration reform and changing demographics in the United States:

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster and strategist, says merely attacking illegal immigration—which is viewed by many Hispanics as an attack on their entire community—isn’t enough for a candidate, and that the GOP’s immigration-reform complacency could be costly in 2016 and beyond.

“The demographics in our country are changing so rapidly—with whites declining and nonwhites increasing about three percentage points each presidential election—that it becomes exceedingly difficult to win a majority of the popular vote just by increasing the share of the white vote going to the Republican candidate,” Mr. Ayres told Forbes last month. Trying to gain a larger share of a shrinking proportion of the electorate is a losing strategy, he added. “It makes far more sense—in 2016 and certainly for elections after that—for Republicans to focus on dramatically increasing their share of the nonwhite vote, especially among Hispanics who are the fastest-growing minority group.”

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Whit Ayres’ comments in The Economist on the demographic challenges facing Republicans at the presidential level:

The idea that a Republican could win without becoming more appealing to minority voters was disproved in 2012. Mitt Romney ran up a record score with non-Hispanic white voters, yet still lost. Both Mr Romney and John McCain, the party’s nominee in 2008, would have been president if they had faced the same (largely lily-white) electorate as Ronald Reagan did in 1980, says Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. And Hillary Clinton, the probable Democratic nominee, is unlikely to do as badly with white voters as Mr Obama did.

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