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Whit Ayres, November 18

November 18, 2013 by

Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico regarding public opinion of gay marriage:

Republican strategist Whit Ayres said the Cheney clash is “symptomatic” of America’s divide on gay marriage.

“Everybody has been reconsidering their view on this issue,” he said. “It doesn’t mean everybody has changed their minds, but a great many people have reconsidered their views. When a couple as rock-ribbed conservative as Dick and Lynne Cheney can have a gay daughter; a former chair of the RNC [Ken Mehlman] announces he is gay, that makes a great many people—even very conservative people—take a second look at the issue.”

To read the full article, please click here.

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

The Obamacare Infection

November 15, 2013 by

Whit Ayres’ post titled “The Obamacare Infection” was featured on National Review Online:

Our polling has shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans simply did not believe most of the president’s promises about Obamacare. In March 2012, substantial majorities said that key claims he made about the law were false. For his claim that “the plan will not add one dime to the federal-budget deficit,” that figure is 71 percent; for “the plan will lower premiums for the average family by $2500 per year,” 67 percent; for “the plan will lower costs for individuals, businesses, and the federal government,” 64 percent.

The one promise they did believe? “If you like your current health plan, you will be able to keep it.” By a margin of 64 to 27 percent, Americans said that promise was true. And now they are discovering that to be false as well.

To read the full post, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Health Care, Home Page, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Obama Approval Rating, Political Climate

Whit Ayres, November 4

November 4, 2013 by

Whit Ayres’ comments on the Virginia gubernatorial race and implications for Republicans for ABC News:

“If the polls hold true and [Ken] Cuccinelli loses, it shows that successful Republicans drive down the middle of the right-hand side of the road — they don’t drive off into the ditch on the right,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Virginia-based Republican pollster.

“It’s hard to say that the Republican Party is in a stronger position today than a year ago,” Ayres added. “But I’m hopeful that more and more Republicans are willing to see the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel.”

To read the full article, please click here.

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

Whit Ayres, October 31

October 31, 2013 by

Whit Ayres’ comments on Morning Edition regarding ObamaCare:

The message challenge for the White House has been and remains very significant. The president made a lot of promises about his healthcare plan that, according to our polling, most Americans never believed. They never believed that the plan would lower health insurance premiums for the average family by $2,500 a year, that the plan would not add one dime to the federal deficit.

The one promise they did believe is that if you like your current plan, you can keep it. And now they’re finding out that not even that is true and they’re feeling betrayed. I think the jury is still out about the individual impact on this law, but I think it’s going to be negative.

For the segment transcript, or to listen to the segment, please click here.

Filed Under: Featured, Health Care, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

Whit Ayres, October 29

October 29, 2013 by

Whit Ayres’ comments for the Associated Press regarding Obamacare:

“There’s no question the issue has legs, in part because it affects so many Americans very directly and in part because the glitches with the website are simply one of many fundamental problems with this law,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said.

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Featured, Health Care, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Obama Approval Rating, Political Climate

Dan Judy, October 22

October 22, 2013 by

Dan Judy’s comments for U.S. News and World Report on immigration reform proposals in the House.

Dan Judy, a Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research, says the Cantor plan strikes the right balance for the GOP, which must walk a fine line with immigration reform. While many want to court Latino voters on the national scale, Republicans in the House of Representatives must be careful not to alienate their constituencies.

“The Dream Act shows very broad support, but when you talk about allowing those children’s parents to stay in the country, independents are split and Republicans are strongly opposed,” Judy says.

“That is a bridge too far for a lot of lawmakers.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Featured, Hispanic Voters, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

Whit Ayres, October 18

October 18, 2013 by

Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico regarding ObamaCare in the 2014 elections:

Republicans, they say, can just let the spotlight return to the federal Obamacare website that breaks all the time — and any other implementation oopsies that happen along the way. That process is already underway, as House Republicans plan hearings on the website issues and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida warned that there will be a “revolt” over Obamacare in 2014.

“Getting the shutdown-debt limit debate behind us allows the problems with Obamacare to resurface. Those problems haven’t gone away,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who had warned GOP lawmakers that the shutdown would be a major distraction from those problems.

To real the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Featured, Health Care, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center Survey on Electoral Reforms

October 15, 2013 by

Our survey on electoral reforms, conducted with our colleagues at The Mellman Group for the Bipartisan Policy Center and USA TODAY, was featured in Susan Page’s story on October 15:

WASHINGTON — The capital’s shutdowns and showdowns have tested the patience even of the Senate chaplain. “Save us from the madness,” he prayed at the opening of one session last week. But how, exactly?

The roots of the nation’s polarized and sometimes paralyzed politics, decades in the making, are too complex and far-reaching to be easily reversed or resolved. Even so, some political scientists and politicians argue that making simple changes — expanding who can vote in primary elections, for instance, or rethinking how legislative districts are drawn — could make a difference in the kind of government that follows.

A nationwide USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll finds a majority of Americans support a range of proposals aimed at easing hyper-partisanship and building confidence in elections. Some command the sort of broad bipartisan backing rare in national politics.

Allow independents to vote in primaries? Yes. Require photo IDs to curb voter fraud? Definitely. Find an alternative to having legislatures draw congressional districts? Maybe. Vote over the Internet? Well, no.

…

The survey of 1,000 adults by Republican pollster Whit Ayres and Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, taken Sept. 19-23, has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points.

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Featured, Home Page, Political Climate, Poll Releases

Dan Judy at the National Journal Congressional Connection Event

October 10, 2013 by

Dan Judy joined Ron Brownstein, Kristen Roberts, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Guy Molyneux, and Jared Bernstein to discuss National Journal’s Congressional Connection poll, the government shutdown, and the debt ceiling.

Congressional Connection Poll Event from National Journal on FORA.tv

Please click here for the video.

Filed Under: Featured, News Clips, Political Climate, Vlog

Dan Judy, October 4

October 4, 2013 by

Dan Judy’s comments on the political effects of the government shutdown in US News and World Report:

At this point it’s impossible to know who will get the blunt of the blame for congressional gridlock. Both sides are forging ahead with independent messaging strategies. Republicans have been pushing mini-funding bills in what they say is an attempt to ease the pain of the government shutdown, while Democrats have been blasting Republicans for trying to dismantle Obamacare, a bill they argue was passed more than 3 years ago and has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

“No one is going to come out of this looking good,” says GOP pollster Dan Judy.

…

Republican pollsters on the other hand are not so sure that the shutdown of 2013 will look anything like those of the 1990s.

“It still might end up killing us in 2014, but it is becoming harder and harder to predict because the old rules just don’t apply anymore,” Judy says.

To read the full article, please click here.

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