North Star Blog

Whit Ayres, June 1

Whit Ayres’ comments in Vox on the DeSantis v. Trump battle in the Republican presidential primary:

DeSantis, once a protege of Trump, faces the challenge of consolidating enough support behind him to challenge the former president’s historically high polling margin over DeSantis.

That involves winning over both the faction of the GOP that never thought Trump was fit for office and the majority of Republican voters who are what ex-DeSantis pollster Whit Ayres calls “Maybe Trump” voters. DeSantis has to concede that he won’t win “Always Trump” voters, who represent about a third of the party, Ayres said. 

“The key for anyone challenging Trump will be to consolidate that ‘Maybe Trump’ faction of the party and maybe pick up a few of the ‘Never Trumpers,’” Ayres said. “But no candidate is going to be able to penetrate the ‘Always Trump’ third of the party. They’ve already decided who they’re going to vote for, and they’re not interested in anyone else.”

Which is why DeSantis may not be able to afford to be overly critical of Trump, and trying to beat the former president at his own game — the name-calling and personal smears, for instance — is probably a losing proposition. “Everyone who engages Donald Trump in a very personal mud fight ends up losing because he is the all-time champion of the vicious personal attack,” Ayres said. 

But DeSantis can distinguish himself on policy and his viability as a candidate. Ayres said that DeSantis would also be wise to emphasize the baggage Trump brings. That might not include Trump’s indictment in New York, which many Republican voters saw as a politically motivated attack from a Democratic district attorney, giving the former president a bump in the polls. But there may be more criminal charges and legal troubles to come. 

“The key is drawing a contrast with [Trump] on those areas where he is most vulnerable — the amount of baggage that he carries and his potential to lose to Joe Biden or whoever the Democrats come up with in 2024,” Ayres said.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, May 9

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Hill regarding the effect of a No Labels presidential candidate:

“In a contest with Biden and Trump, there is no way a No Labels candidate could win,” Whit Ayres, a leading Republican pollster, told me. “That candidate couldn’t win any states; they’d get zero electoral votes.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, May 8

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Hill regarding former President Donald Trump’s position in the Republican presidential primary:

Whit Ayres, a prominent Republican pollster, said the possibility of additional indictments against Trump by the Department of Justice and the Fulton County district attorney in Georgia could swing the race away from Trump, predicting that charges from those prosecutors would have more credibility than Bragg’s indictment.  

“People seem to have an inevitable tendency to jump to premature conclusions well before we know many of the key elements of a campaign environment,” he said in response to comments by some GOP senators that Trump’s victory in next year’s primary looks inevitable.  

“What might be the political effects of serious felony indictments backed up a mountain of compelling evidence?” he asked of potential felony charges that Trump incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and tried to interfere in the 2020 election in Georgia.  

“Are Republican voters really going to dismiss multiple credible felony indictments backed up by substantial evidence, if indeed they occur? They might, but I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. 

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, May 1

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Washington Post regarding views of President Biden’s age and Vice President Harris’ capabilities:

Biden is in an unprecedented situation because of his low-40s approval ratings and the clear aversion many have to him running again, Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. Harris’s struggles to generate strong support from voters in either party have added complexity to Biden’s reelection prospects, Ayers added. More than dozen Democratic leaders in key states expressed concerns earlier this year about Harris’s political strength in interviews with The Washington Post.

“That’s an enormous number of people who really don’t want the incumbent president to run again,” Ayres said. “You layer on top of that the fact that the vast majority of the American people do not believe that someone in their mid-80s should try to be shouldering the enormous burdens and pressures of the presidency — and that is especially true when he has a vice president who is widely viewed by members of both parties as not ready for prime time. That is an enormous hill to climb.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, April 23

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Los Angeles Times about former President Trump’s support in the Republican primary:

“Trump is obviously the favorite, but he’s beatable,” Republican strategist Alex Conant said. “He’s beatable because the race isn’t static. The poll numbers today are not what they will be six months from now.”

GOP pollster Whit Ayres agreed and pointed to evidence that primary voters are open to other candidates.

In focus groups, he said, he’s encountered “people who voted for Trump, who like what he did as president, but they don’t think Trump can win this time. … They want somebody who has a different temperament.”

Ayres estimates that roughly a third of Republicans are unshakable “Always Trump” loyalists.

But a larger chunk of the GOP electorate, about 60%, consists of people who voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020 but are willing to consider alternatives — a group he calls “Maybe Trump.”

They’re a potential majority in Republican primaries, and that makes them the key to the nomination.

Polls suggest Ayres is right.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, April 26 (Politico)

Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico about President Biden’s low visibility campaign:

With polls showing a majority of Americans preferring that Biden not seek a second term, the campaign team has its work cut out for them. The task being to gin up support from your own base while keeping yourself off of center stage can, at times, be in conflict. But there is one way to do both: focusing attention on the Republican alternative.

“Republicans nominating Trump again plays right into Biden’s message,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres conceded. “Biden only won in 2020 by a hair in the Electoral College, and he has significant problems now. But his unobtrusiveness is not one of them. In part, that’s what he ran on: not being in your face every day.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, April 26 (Time)

Whit Ayres’ comments in Time on a potential 2020 rematch in 2024:

The most compelling thing going for him among Democrats may be that he seems likely to again face Trump. And Trump’s already lost that match-up before. “He beat Trump once and Democrats appreciate that accomplishment,” says Republican strategist Whit Ayres. But Ayres notes, “just because he beat him doesn’t mean he can beat him again.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, April 26

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Wall Street Journal on the Republican presidential primary:

Because of what Mr. Trump accomplished in 2016, it would be foolish to count him out next year. But Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP strategist, told me that Republicans who believe that someone other than the former president stands a better chance of defeating Mr. Biden should take note of what Democrats did in 2020. “It’s not how many people start the race, it’s how many people stay in after they have no chance of winning,” Mr. Ayres said. “And once Biden won South Carolina in 2020, literally within hours the rest of the field dropped out and endorsed him.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, April 20

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times about electability and Donald Trump:

“It has sounded like an excuse to get conservative voters to support somebody they don’t really want, even though the argument may very well be true,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. Citing G.O.P. losses while Mr. Trump has defined the party — in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 — Mr. Ayres added of the former president and the G.O.P. 2024 front-runner, “There is no education in the fifth kick of a mule, and yet it appears that’s where we’re headed.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Dan Judy, April 14

Dan Judy’s comments to The Hill regarding the state of play in the Republican presidential primaries:

“There is definitely room for another candidate — though perhaps only one, ultimately, if Trump and DeSantis suck all the air out of the room,” said GOP strategist Dan Judy.

Judy argued that a large swath of the electorate in the GOP primary can be best defined as “Maybe Trump.” These voters are not hostile to the former president in the same way as the more fervent but smaller “Never Trump” camp is, but they would nevertheless prefer some other candidate as nominee.

Judy pointed out that there is still some possibility, however small, that DeSantis might take a pass on the race. More pertinently, if the Florida governor does get in, there are no guarantees that he will live up to his supporters’ expectations.

“If he gets in and is not ready for prime time or does not make the impression that a lot of people expect that he will, then what happens? Is it, ‘Fine, ‘we’ll just give it to Trump’ or are we looking for someone else?”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, March 28

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Christian Science Monitor on former President Trump’s calls to protest a potential indictment:

“The last time Donald Trump called supporters to protest his election loss on Jan. 6, more than 1,000 people faced criminal charges,” says GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “That might give some people pause before they answer Trump’s call to protest this time. You could end up losing your job, your freedom, your family.”

To read the full column, please click here.

Whit Ayres, March 16

Whit Ayres’ comments to Time regarding the effect of charges against former President Donald Trump:

Charges related to the Daniels’ hush money payments would be “old news to most people,” says Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist and pollster, and “he could easily spin this as just a liberal democratic vendetta against him.”

An indictment by Bragg, Ayres adds, would have “substantially less effect than an indictment in Georgia or by the Department of Justice would have because it’s a New York Democratic prosecutor who would be doing it.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, March 15

Whit Ayres’ comments to fivethirtyeight.com regarding education and Republican candidates:

These data points might be one reason why Republicans appear confident that DeSantis’s focus on race in education can attract socially conservative voters in a GOP primary. During a phone call with me, Republican pollster Whit Ayres pointed to Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial race — after he stressed “parental rights” in the classroom — as proof for GOP candidates and strategists that certain issues surrounding education have appeal.

“Savvy Republican presidential candidates have historically made good use of education issues,” Ayres said. “Good Republican candidates have seen the potential in education issues for many years.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Credit Card Fee Survey

Our firm recently conducted a national survey of voters regarding credit card fees.  Voters understand the importance of paying their credit card bills on time, understand the consequences of not doing so, and are wary of the trade-offs involved were late fees to be lowered.  Simply put, the current system is working well for consumers, and does not need any changes.

Key findings from the survey of 1,071 registered voters are:

1.   Consumers understand why it is important to pay their credit card bills on time, and are overwhelmingly likely to do so.  Eighty-five percent of voters have at least one credit card that they use for retail purchases.  Among these consumers, 99 percent say that it is important that they pay their credit card bill on time (with 91 percent saying it is “very important”), and  82 percent make all of their payments on time, 13 percent make one late payment per year, and just 5 percent make two or more late payments a year.

Ninety-six percent of these consumers are aware that not paying their credit card bill on time can result in a decrease in their credit score, 74 percent know that their bank charges a fee for late payments (in addition to interest), and 72 percent are aware of extra alerts their card issuer sends to help them avoid making late payments.

2.   By a 21-point margin, voters believe that a decrease in the penalty will result in more people making late payments.  Fifty-three percent of voters believe “people will be more likely to make late payments on their credit cards if the late payment penalty is reduced from $30 to $8, because $8 isn’t enough of a penalty to make people care about on-time payments,” while 32 percent think it will have no real effect on late payments, and 15 percent are unsure.

3.   Majorities of voters are concerned about the potential consequences of a cap on late fees.  Voters were asked about potential outcomes of capping late fees at $8 in the following questions:

“If effectively limiting late fees to $8 causes credit card companies to increase other fees like annual fees, balance transfer fees, cash advance fees, and foreign transaction fees, is that a good tradeoff?”  Voters say this is not a good tradeoff by 57 to 30 percent.

“If effectively limiting late fees to $8 causes credit card companies to eliminate or reduce benefits like cashback, discounts at restaurants, or airline miles, is that a good tradeoff?”  Voters say this is not a good tradeoff by 54 to 35 percent.

Methodology

This survey of 1,071 registered voters was conducted online February 28-March 1, 2023 by i-360 using their voter-matched panel.  Results were rake-weighted for state, gender, race/ethnicity, age, and education level to reflect current voter registration nationwide.

Whit Ayres, March 13

Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico about former President Trump’s current place in the Republican primary:

“There’s no question [Trump is] the giant in the middle of the room, and other people will define themselves in comparison to him,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster.

In recent days, Trump said he will “absolutely” stay in the race if he is indicted and that it would likely “enhance my numbers.” Far from distancing himself from the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — a general election liability with independents and pro-democracy Republicans — Trump has suggested pardoning some Jan. 6 defendants and recently collaborated on a song with some of them. More traditionalist Republicans winced at that — and again when Fox’s Tucker Carlson aired footage downplaying violence at the Capitol.

“Just reliving the worst moment of the Trump presidency is probably not exactly what the doctor ordered for 2024,” Ayres said.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, February 28

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Boston Globe regarding electability as a concern in the Republican nominating progress:

Trump is still viewed favorably by about two-thirds or more of Republicans, according to multiple surveys, but that doesn’t mean they’ll all vote for him again, said veteran Republican pollster, Whit Ayres. His current and potential competitors are beginning to make the case — with varying levels of directness — that voters should consider alternatives after the losses in the 2018 midterms, the 2020 general election, the 2021 Senate runoffs, and the 2022 midterms.

“If Republican primary voters come to believe that nominating Donald Trump in 2024 will lead Republicans to lose 5 national elections in a row,” said Ayres,“it then opens the door to other alternatives.”

According to Ayres’ polling and focus groups, about one-third of Republicans are what he calls “Always Trump” voters, who would cast a ballot for Trump no matter what. Ten percent of the party, he says, would never vote for the former president.

That leaves about 55 to 60 percent of Republicans who he considers “maybe Trump” voters — who voted for him twice and still like him, but are open to alternative candidates. And that is the group that other candidates need to convince with a pragmatic argument.

“It is one of the core arguments behind the ‘maybe Trump’ coalition, because they believe that Donald Trump could not win in 2024 and they want a candidate who can,” Ayres said. “Electability is a primary motivating force.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, February 20

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times regarding President Biden’s reelection:

Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster, said a rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump would be the best scenario for the president. “At this point, President Biden just needs to seem like he is still very much with it and able to do the job and at that point his fate is largely out of his hands,” Mr. Ayres said. “He’s got to pray the Republicans blow themselves up again.”

Still, another challenger would pose more of a generational threat. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is 44; Nikki Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, is 51; and former Vice President Mike Pence is 63. “If the Republicans nominate a younger, vigorous person, male or female, who seems up to the job, I think he’s in trouble,” Mr. Ayres said of Mr. Biden.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, February 14

Whit Ayres’ comments to CNN on the structure of the Republican primary electorate:

That allowed Trump in 2016 to neutralize Cruz’ expected edge among evangelicals because those without degrees voted more like other blue-collar Republicans than they did like the white-collar evangelicals. Among Republican voters, said Ayres, the GOP pollster, “the education divide” has been “a better predictor of Donald Trump’s strength than the evangelical/non-evangelical divide.”

Early indications are that education will remain a critical fault line in the 2024 GOP race, including among evangelical voters. Ayres said that in the recent 2024 polling he conducted for The Bulwark, Trump ran about even with DeSantis among non-college evangelicals when the two were matched with a large field of potential contenders, while DeSantis led the former president fairly comfortably among both college-educated evangelicals and non-evangelicals with and without a degree.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, February 15

Whit Ayres appeared on PBS News Hour to discuss Governor Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/haley-launches-run-for-president-becoming-1st-republican-to-challenge-trump

Whit Ayres, February 6

Whit Ayres’ comments in Sarah Longwell’s podcast “The Focus Group” were featured on The Bulwark:

Whit Ayres, February 2

Whit Ayres’ comments to The New York Times regarding former President Trump’s position in the Republican presidential primary:

Mr. Ayres, the Republican pollster, said that “there’s no question there’s an opening” to run against Mr. Trump.

“In a multicandidate field, he has a lock somewhere around 28 to 30 percent, and that is a very significant portion of the party,” Mr. Ayres said. “And they are very, very committed to him. But if he doesn’t get more than that, in a narrowing field or a small field, he’s going to have a hard time winning the nomination.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Republican Presidential Primary Survey

In the wake of a disappointing Republican performance in the 2022 midterm elections, Donald Trump has slipped to his lowest point since he emerged on the political scene almost eight years ago.  He remains a formidable force, to be sure, with a lock on approximately 30 percent of likely Republican primary and caucus voters nationally.  But a majority of the GOP is ready to move on, believing either that Trump cannot win in 2024, or that he is too focused on the past rather than the future.

To read the full memo, please click here.

To read the toplines, please click here.

Whit Ayres, January 27

Whit Ayres’ comments to Steven Roberts on Governor Ron DeSantis and his outlook in the 2024 presidential primaries:

DeSantis could be a far tougher foe. At 44, with a telegenic wife and three adorable young children, he highlights Biden’s age. More seriously, he shares Trump’s shrewder political instincts but lacks Trump’s fatal flaws — the narcotic narcissism, the endless grievances and the growing detachment from reality, all of which drive away moderate swing voters, who decide national elections.

“He’s Trump without the craziness,” says Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, January 26

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Boston Globe about the prospects of a third-party candidate:

Further, despite Perot’s surprisingly strong showing, “the key point is that 19 percent of the popular vote yielded zero Electoral College votes,” noted Republican pollster Whit Ayres. For an independent candidate to emerge as a serious Electoral College factor, “you would have to assume that states that have voted consistently for either Democratic or Republican nominees lately would not do so again.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, December 29

Whit Ayres’ comments in Time on the 2024 Donald Trump campaign:

So far, Trump’s campaign is “disjointed, haphazard, unfocused, and still focused on the past, and his grievances, rather than the future, which is what attracted a lot of Republicans to him in 2015,” says Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. Nonetheless, Trump still has a grip on a meaningful slice of his party’s base. According to polling Ayres conducted with North Star Opinion Research, about 30% to 40% of GOP voters fall into what Ayres describes as “always Trump,” people who say they will support Trump no matter what. That is a strong base from which to wage a Republican primary campaign, Ayres says.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, December 2

Whit Ayres’ comments about ticket splitting and voters’ decisions in Governing:

Ayres, the GOP consultant, says that citizens make different calculations when voting for the Senate — where they’re choosing someone who will primarily just cast votes — than governor, where they’re electing someone with real decision-making authority. “Governors make life and death decisions, whether it’s the final decision with the death penalty or when to evacuate the coast in a hurricane,” Ayres says. “People look at governors with common sense and good judgment in dealing with very real issues under their control, in a way they don’t with Senate candidates.”

When it comes to federal elections, Ayres suggests, people are voting strictly for their team, whether red or blue, or voting negatively to keep the other team out of power. Partisanship is practically all that matters. What may be most striking about this election, in fact, is not that the number of ticket-splitters went up, but rather the way it illustrates once again that the nation’s political map remains stable, or even static.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, November 19

Whit Ayres’ comments to US News and World Report regarding former President Trump’s prospects in the 2024 Republican presidential primary:

Though some of the most recent polling suggests that Trump’s support among Republicans may be falling slightly, within that general support lies a core group of 35 to 40% of “always-Trumpers,” says Whit Ayers, GOP strategist and president of North Star Opinion Research. “They believe he hung the moon, they’ll walk through a wall of flame for him, they’ll defend him until hell freezes over.”

To win the primary, a candidate needs a plurality rather than a majority. Though Trump’s core supporters would not, on their own, guarantee his victory in the primaries if it becomes a one-on-one contest with another candidate – as demonstrated by recent polls showing his loss in several states in hypothetical head-to-head matchups against DeSantis – his path could be much easier if two or more serious contenders split the vote of, what Ayers estimates, is about half of Republicans who supported Trump but are tired of his controversies and open to supporting someone else.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, November 19

Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico on ticket-splitting and candidate quality:

“In historical terms it may be low, but [ticket-splitting] was absolutely critical in numerous races this fall,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster for more than 30 years, said in an interview. “Voters made a lot of judgments about the quality of candidates nominated, and that’s why Democrats still control the Senate.”

“Governors actually make life and death decisions,” Ayres, the Republican pollster, said. “People are looking for good sense and good judgment in governors more than senators or congressmen, where increasingly they’re just looking for someone to join the blue team or the red team.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres, November 18

Whit Ayres comments in the Associated Press (as printed in The Washington Post) regarding the House GOP’s legislative priorities:

Whit Ayres, a GOP political consultant, said Republicans should focus on inflation, crime and border security in the majority, but fears they will overreach once again.

“If past is prologue, the small House majority will govern from the right and we’ll get engaged in these investigations and cut off Ukraine aid and try to ban abortion and do all these other things that will repel a majority of the country and put Democrats back in charge,” Ayres said during a post-election forum at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

To read the full article, please click here.

Jon McHenry, November 16

Jon McHenry’s comments to The Boston Globe regarding Donald Trump’s effect on the midterm elections:

Now after four tumultuous years in office, three straight disappointing Republican elections, two impeachments, and one deadly insurrection, Trump is a known political entity — and one whoseems to be rapidly losing popularity among Republicans just as he announced another White House run Tuesday night.

“How much do people have to lose before they go, ‘Wait a second, it’s because this quarterback keeps throwing pick-sixes that we’re losing?’ ” said Republican pollster Jon McHenry. “How many times do you have to burn your hand before you realize the stove is hot?”

McHenry thinks Republicans might have attributed too much of their polling decline in the summer to the backlash over the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning federal abortion rights, when Trump may have also played a role because of the controversy involving the FBI’s seizure of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago was unfolding at the same time. And he thinks Trump’s decision to tease an upcoming presidential announcement in the days before the midterms might also have turned off some voters.

“When President Trump was heavily involved in the news, things didn’t go well for Republicans” in the polls, McHenry said. “When the focus was on President Biden, things were very good for Republicans. And I don’t know how many will admit it, especially on the record, but I think there’s a pretty good sentiment that [Trump] did drag us down just enough to fall short in the Senate.”

To read the full article, please click here.