Voters Trust American Free Enterprise

Our June 17-22, 2023 survey for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was highlighted in Politico Influence:

FIRST IN PI — CHAMBER POLLING: BUTT OUT OF BUSINESS: As (most of) the Republican presidential hopefuls gear up for tomorrow night’s first primary debate, a new memo based on polling from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and shared exclusively with PI looks to discourage the use of corporate America as a political punching bag, arguing to candidates on both sides of the aisle that voters are not interested in political “micromanagement” of business decisions.

— “As we head into election season, the message is clear: Whether you are courting Republican, Democratic, or independent voters, candidates will be well served to run as pro-business candidates focused on solutions that support jobs and America’s free enterprise system,” Ashlee Rich Stephenson, the Chamber’s senior political strategist, writes in the memo.

— In a matchup between three hypothetical candidates — one who favors more disclosure of companies’ ESG efforts; one who favors government intervention to rescue companies from large “woke” investors; and one who “says that whether it comes from the right or the left, government micromanaging of business is a bad idea” — the last of those candidates received a plurality of 40 percent support, according to the Chamber’s memo. That included support from 53 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of independents and a little over a quarter of Democrats, which the memo says tracks with other recent polls of GOP voters.

— North Star Opinion Research polled 1,327 registered voters between June 17-22 for the Chamber. Among the survey’s other findings were that voters across the ideological spectrum agreed that businesses are a force for good. The poll found that Republican and independent voters trust even large companies more than the federal government, with Democrats rating the federal government only slightly more trustworthy. More than three quarters of Republicans polled and nearly 6 in 10 independents polled favored less government intervention in the economy.

To read the full column, please click here.

To read the Chamber’s memo highlighting the survey results, please click here.

Whit Ayres, August 18

Whit Ayres’ comments to the Associated Press regarding the Republican primary electorate:

Whit Ayres, a national pollster based in Virginia, handicapped the GOP electorate as 10% to 15% “Never Trumpers” — those who might gravitate to Christie for his attacks on Trump — and 35% or so “die-hard MAGA Trump supporters,” referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

The rest, half or a slim majority of the party, “have doubts about his electability” in a general election but are still “reliable Republicans who voted for him twice,” Ayres said. Trump’s rivals cannot win over that remaining faction by “going after him frontally,” the pollster argued.

As a Republican, “you can’t call him unfit for office,” Ayres said. “That’s basically requiring half the party to admit they screwed up and put someone unfit for office into the Oval Office. That’s just a psychological step too far for most people.”

To read the full article on the PBS website, please click here.

Jon McHenry, August 14

Jon McHenry’s comments to The Boston Globe regarding the economy as an issue in the Republican primary and general election:

Letting the White House dominate the conversation isn’t good for Republicans with polls consistently showing that voters rank the economy as the most important issue, said Jon McHenry, a GOP pollster not affiliated with any of the campaigns.

“It makes a lot of sense to be out there … talking about what you’re going to do to fix the economy,” McHenry said of the candidates in the GOP primary campaign. “Republicans are better served being involved on the issue and laying the groundwork on it rather than ceding the issue to Joe Biden for the next 12 months or so.”

McHenry said Pence was smart to frame his economic plan, which goes beyond inflation, as still primarily focused on that problem.

“It’s a good shorthand on the economy,” he said. “Just talking about inflation is a pretty good way to make sure people are on the same page with you.”

For now, Biden is doing more talking in detail about the economy than his Republican opponents, making Bidenomics a centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

“I don’t know if it’s the dumbest or gutsiest move I’ve seen politically in the last 20 years,” McHenry said.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, August 7

Whit Ayres spoke with The Guardian about Hunter Biden’s legal troubles:

Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant and pollster, said: “There are plenty of questions surrounding his business activities and the extent to which he traded on his father’s name and reputation or used his father to get more money or get large contracts. There are plenty of questions and a lot of suspicion – in Republican circles anyway – about how that has been investigated.”

The scrutiny is testing boundaries and whether the family of a politician – even a president – is fair game. Hunter has never served in the White House, which is quick to describe him as a “private citizen”. But he is often seen at his father’s side, including on a recent trip to Ireland and on the White House balcony for 4 July fireworks, a frequent reminder of the president’s family complications.

Ayres added: “I don’t think I would be putting him front and centre as much as the president is doing. I understand his instinct to try to be loyal to a troubled son but politically it is not at all helpful. The less visible Hunter Biden is, the better it is for Joe Biden.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Jon McHenry, August 2

Jon McHenry joined Channel 4 News in the UK to discuss former President Trump’s standing despite multiple indictments:

https://www.channel4.com/news/why-trump-is-still-the-republican-presidential-front-runner-despite-several-indictments

Whit Ayres, July 31

Whit Ayres appeared on PBS NewsHour to discuss the current state of the race:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/republican-challengers-struggle-in-primary-polls-despite-trumps-legal-troubles

Jon McHenry, July 31

Jon McHenry’s comments in The Daily Caller regarding the DeSantis campaign “reboot”:

“I think a reset now gives Governor DeSantis a chance to reassert himself as the strongest alternative to former President Trump,” Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, told the DCNF. “Gov. DeSantis moving to make himself more available to the media and voters is a great first step.”

McHenry argued the campaign’s “staff was too big,” which indicated to contributors that DeSantis wasn’t being responsible with their funds. DeSantis also needs to promote his record in Florida without simply “owning the libs,” said McHenry.

“At some point he’s going to have to draw some distinctions with Trump and talk about how he’s really led when President Trump followed Washington,” said McHenry. “It’s not enough to be ‘Trump without the baggage,’ you have to be a better choice and have a vision for the country’s future.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, July 25

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Washington Post on the Mike Pence campaign:

“Mike Pence is caught between a rock and a hard place. He’s too Trumpy for the non-Trumpies and not Trumpy enough for the Trumpies,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “If you say that Donald Trump is unfit for office, that puts people who voted for Trump in an uncomfortable position psychologically where they have to admit to themselves that they made a mistake. I suppose you could thread that needle by saying he was fit for office until Jan. 6th, and after that he wasn’t. But that’s really threading a needle with those folks.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Dan Judy, July 25

Dan Judy’s comments in The Hill regarding Governor DeSantis’ campaign and cultural issues:

Some Republicans argue that DeSantis has made a strategic miscalculation in allowing his stance on culture-war issues to overshadow everything else.

GOP strategist Dan Judy argued that the Republican primary electorate is comprised of three camps, which he termed “Always Trump,” “Never Trump” and “Maybe Trump” voters.

The red-meat rhetoric, Judy added, “most appeals to the people who won’t vote for anyone but Trump. And leaning so hard into the culture wars has actually turned off some of those ‘Maybe Trump’ voters who are less comfortable with the anti-trans stuff, the hard abortion stuff. That has been [DeSantis’s] biggest strategic mistake so far.” 

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, July 22

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Miami Herald on Governor Ron DeSantis’ appeal in the primary:

“College-educated Republicans were looking for an alternative to Donald Trump, and they initially thought Governor DeSantis, after his 19-point win in Florida, made for a good one,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP pollster. “But the way he has run his campaign, constantly tacking to the right, has turned off many of those people who were initially attracted to him.”

To read the full article, please click here.