Whit Ayres’ comments in The Hill regarding the differences in reactions between Senators and House members:

But in general, Trump has stronger support in the House, where GOP lawmakers tend to represent more conservative constituencies.

“Senators clearly are more visible elected officials, and almost all of them have more heterogeneous constituencies than House members. They have to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate than do House members, especially those in gerrymandered congressional districts,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Hill regarding President Trump’s criticisms of Republicans in the Senate:

Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant who worked with Sen. Marco Rubio’s (Fla.) campaign in last year’s Republican presidential primary, echoed Cornyn’s comments about politics being a team sport.

“No one can succeed alone,” Ayres said. “Attacking members of your own team has never been known to be an effective strategy to produce victories.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres’ comments in the Financial Times regarding “Real News” and President Trump’s efforts to maintain his favorable ratings with his base of support:

“Clearly he has very strong support still among the folks who voted for him and among Republicans overall. But there seems to be some slippage in the intensity of support; that is, movement from people who ‘strongly approve’ of his job performance to ‘somewhat approve’,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant.

He noted that Republicans were reluctant to give a negative approval rating for “one of their own”. Richard Nixon, for instance, still had above-water approval ratings among Republicans until the day he left office. “It’s more a matter of watching the intensity,” Mr Ayres said. 

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres’ comments to NPR on the potential electoral effects of a government shutdown:

“The government shutdown in October 2013 gave the Republican Party a huge hit from which it took more than a year to recover,” said veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “The drop in the Republican Party’s favorable rating was dramatic. We were fortunate that we had a year to repair the damage.”
…
“Most of the wisdom of pollsters comes from looking at history of past actions and all the history of the last government shutdown suggests that it was very bad news for Republicans,” said Ayres. “There’s no reason to think that the result will be any different in the future, especially since we control the entire government.”

To read the full article, please click here.