About Us
About North Star
North Star Opinion Research is a national public opinion research firm located in Alexandria, VA. The firm conducts surveys and focus groups across the country for associations, non-profits, corporations, and Republican candidates for office at all levels.
Roll Call, a widely-read newspaper on Capitol Hill, calls the firm “one of the best in the nation,” and Campaigns and Elections magazine has profiled President Whit Ayres and Vice President Jon McHenry as two of the political world’s “movers and shakers,” and in 2012 named Vice President Dan Judy a “Rising Star” of the political consulting industry.
North Star Opinion Research was honored by The American Association of Political Consultants in 2012 for its role in the “Public Affairs Campaign of the Year,” conducting bi-partisan research with The Mellman Group on behalf of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
Whit Ayres, Founder and President of North Star, is the former President and Chairman of The American Association of Political Consultants, a bi-partisan group of national political and public affairs professionals, and co-founder (with former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie) of Resurgent Republic, a research and educational organization that crafts creative conservative political messages for the 21st century.
North Star Opinion ResearchTHE TEAM
Whit Ayres
WHIT AYRES
Whit Ayres is a leading Washington, D.C. political consultant with over 30 years of experience in polling and survey research for high profile political campaigns and associations. He is the author of 2016 and Beyond, which draws upon his years of campaign experience and decades of polling trends to illustrate the ways in which new candidates, new messages, and a new tone can help Republicans win the presidency in the New America.
As Founder and President of North Star Opinion Research, a national public opinion and public affairs research firm located in Alexandria, Virginia, Whit provides message development advice and strategic insights to high level political clients including U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, Jim Inhofe, and John Kennedy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, current and former Tennessee Governors Bill Lee and Bill Haslam, and former Senator Bob Corker. Association clients include the Boy Scouts of America, the Federalist Society, and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association.
Whit has been active in The American Association of Political Consultants for over 20 years, serving as its Treasurer, President, and Chairman. In 2012, Whit was honored as the Republican Pollster of the Year by the organization. AAPC is a bi-partisan professional society that promotes the political consulting industry, protects political freedom of speech, and fosters ethical behavior in political campaigns.
Whit’s comments and analysis appear in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and numerous regional newspapers as well as National Public Radio.
Whit founded his company after a career as a tenured professor in the Department of Government and International Studies at the University of South Carolina. Whit is a graduate of Davidson College and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jon McHenry
JON McHENRY
Jon McHenry is Vice President of North Star Opinion Research, formerly Ayres, McHenry and Associates. In addition to working with the firm’s political, public affairs, and corporate clients, he oversees the firm’s fielding procedures and methodology.
Jon’s corporate and public affairs work has focused on health care, including work with Horizon Public Affairs; telecommunications, including AT&T as a client; transportation, working with both government and private firms; and employee satisfaction research, most notably with Georgia-Pacific.
Jon spends a significant amount of time helping clients who are eyeing multiple races to target their time and resources. His collaborative work with other pollsters established guidelines for the National Republican Congressional Committee to ensure comparable data across polling firms in individual contest and committee roles.
Jon’s comments and analysis have appeared in a variety of media settings, including BBC television and radio, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC Nightly News, the Boston Globe, The Daily Caller, The Hill, The New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR-member radio station shows.
Jon graduated cum laude from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in political science while earning spots on the North Atlantic Conference All-Conference Soccer Academic Team in 1990 and 1991. He held his first job in polling at UNH as well, working in the Survey Center as an interviewer during the 1992 primary season.
Jon received his M.A. in political science from the University of Georgia, with an emphasis on American politics and statistics. He served both as a research assistant and teaching assistant to faculty there.
Dan Judy
DAN JUDY
Dan Judy joined North Star Opinion Research as a Research Analyst in early 2001, and became Vice President in 2009. In 2012, Campaigns and Elections magazine named him a “Rising Star” in the political consulting industry, and in 2015 he was part of the American Association of Political Consultants’ inaugural “40 Under 40” class. He works on a wide variety of political, non-profit, and corporate projects from questionnaire development, to fielding, to strategic analysis and presentation, and is also a skilled focus group moderator, having conducted groups on a wide range of topics in dozens of cities across the country.
Dan has helped the winning campaigns of U.S. Senators including Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, Marco Rubio, and John Kennedy; Governors including Ron DeSantis (FL), and Bill Lee (TN); dozens of members of the U.S. House; and state and local officials across the country. His public affairs work has focused on transportation (for clients including the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and Transit Planning Board in his home state of Georgia), the environment (for The Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Land, ClearPath, and Environmental Defense), and health care (for America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association). Other clients include the Boy Scouts of America, The Federalist Society, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Dan often offers commentary on polling and the political issues of the day, and his analysis has appeared on network television stations across the country, BBC World TV and Radio, NPR’s Morning Edition, Sirius XM, and in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, The Hill, and National Journal. He has also served as a panelist at national conferences including ALEC, the American Association of Political Consultants, the Hispanic Leadership Network, and his alma mater The University of Georgia.
Dan graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia with a degree in political science and history and is a member of the American Association of Political Consultants and the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He has lectured on polling at The University of Georgia, American University, and Cornell University’s Roper Center for Public Opinion Research and served as adjunct faculty at The University of Chicago.
Dan is a passionate fan of the Georgia Bulldogs and Atlanta Braves. He has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, run two marathons, and reached the summits of Washington’s Mt. Rainier (14,410 feet), Mexico’s Pico de Orizaba (18,701 feet), Ecuador’s Cayambe (18,996 feet), and Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,341 feet). He lives in Alexandria with his wife and 2 children.
Cheryl Martin Glenn
CHERYL MARTIN GLENN
Cheryl Glenn founded the firm with Whit Ayres in 1991 and is the one indispensible member of the team, managing the day-to-day operations of the company. Her wide variety of responsibilities include managing the firm’s finances and meticulously editing every written document that is released publicly or privately.
Cheryl has two decades of experience in survey research and data management and specializes in clear and creative graphic presentation of survey data. In addition to preparing the presentations for Resurgent Republic’s national releases, her work has been seen by a wide variety of groups throughout the country, including the annual Awakening Conference in South Carolina, the American Association of Political Consultants, and the U.S. Senate Republican Conference.
A native of Columbia, SC, Cheryl attended the University of South Carolina and enjoys history, politics, and international travel.
What We Do
North Star Opinion Research provides strategic guidance to Republican candidates for office, trade associations, nonprofit organizations, and corporations. We are a full-service research firm offering a broad range of capabilities and expertise.
Full-service may be an overused expression that’s taken on a generic connotation; but for our team, full-service means delivering above expectations. Sure, we conduct surveys and focus groups and write up the results. Clients expect that from a reputable opinion research firm. But full-service at North Star means starting with the question, “What does the client need?” We tailor our services to meet each client’s unique challenges. Some clients need a series of focus groups with independent voters around the country to dig down into opinions on a national issue. Other clients may need a long survey testing messages for their statewide campaign.
At North Star, we can do it all, but we’ll only recommend the services we know are necessary to accomplish our clients’ goals. One size doesn’t fit all. Every client gets a research plan that uniquely addresses their challenges and provides the direction they need to take action.
Full-service means personal attention. Our clients benefit from the experience, insight and brain trust of our entire team. We work together to provide clients with the best research and strategic advice. North Star does a lot of research, but we’re not a polling factory. We partner with clients that we care about, invest in their issues and objectives, and give each one the attention they need without overwhelming them with costly, redundant, or irrelevant data.
Full-service means putting the results in context. We don’t just gather and interpret the data. We put the data to work and provide the meaning behind the results. We use the data to educate, inform, and empower our clients. For example, a candidate leading 45 to 40 percent has a different task ahead of him if he holds 70 percent of his base as opposed to one leading 45 to 40 percent but with 85 percent of his base. And a candidate who can win a plurality by focusing on the state’s less expensive media markets is in a different position than one who needs to run up the score in the state’s population center. Context is the difference between interesting results and useful results.
North Star is not just any opinion research firm. It’s the firm clients turn to for honest, reliable, straightforward direction and strategic thinking unmatched in the industry.
Why We Do It
We conduct research for conservative causes because we’re passionate about promoting free-market principles and helping the candidates and causes that support those principles.
We’re also dedicated to making sure that our research is methodologically rigorous and has been checked — and rechecked — for accuracy. And when those results go to the client, they’re presented clearly, in a way that helps them make the strategic decisions that lie ahead. Good judgment combined with good instincts.
We do research because it’s challenging and fun. We enjoy talking to regular voters in focus groups and using their insights to help our clients get where they want to go. And we like digging into complex survey numbers and using them to tell a clear, compelling story that helps answer questions and solve problems. But we’re anything but numbers geeks. We take our business seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
Our current team has been together for 23 years. We’re like a family. We challenge each other, support each other and poke fun at each other; but at the end of the day, we rally around our clients’ business in pursuit of excellence.
In short, we love what we do, and think our enthusiasm makes us great at it.
Our History
