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Jon McHenry, January 20

January 20, 2024 by

Jon McHenry’s comments to Real Clear Politics on the current state of the DeSantis campaign:

“It’s tough to see a path forward,” admitted Jon McHenry, a vice president at North Star Opinion Research Group, whose firm worked on the governor’s 2018 Florida campaign.

“His path is almost to hope for Nikki Haley to lose badly in New Hampshire and then be the alternative to Donald Trump in South Carolina,” he added before pointing to New Hampshire, “while you’re also taking yourself off the table for the most visible contest.”

…

The current strategy, McHenry said, “tells a lot of donors, we’re just bailing water out of the ship at this point in trying to get the shore.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: DeSantis, Featured, New Hampshire Primary, Presidential Primaries

Whit Ayres, January 2

January 2, 2024 by

Whit Ayres’ comments in the Huffington Post on Governor DeSantis’ campaign:

But unlike most Trump supporters, who have little knowledge of or experience with the judicial system, DeSantis is a trained naval JAG officer who worked in that capacity as a federal prosecutor in Florida. That experience, in theory, should have given him an understanding of what it takes to get a judge to approve a search warrant ? particularly when the target is a former president.

Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster who worked on DeSantis’ 2018 run for governor, said DeSantis could have released a statement pointing out that the allegations underlying the search warrant were serious, that he hoped they were not true, and that Trump was innocent until proven guilty and would have his day in court.

“Something like that would have been more appropriate, I think,” he said.

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Primaries, Trump

Whit Ayres, December 12

December 11, 2023 by

Whit Ayres’ comments to The Atlantic regarding the primary challenges of Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley:

As the veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres told me, DeSantis “has tried to appeal to some of the ‘always Trump’ voters, but the ‘always Trump’ voters are always Trump for a reason. Nikki Haley seems to have figured out the job is to consolidate the ‘maybe Trump’ voters who supported Trump twice but now … want a different style and different temperament.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, Cultural Issues, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Nikki Haley, Presidential Primaries, Republicans

Jon McHenry, December 6

December 8, 2023 by

Jon McHenry spoke with NPR regarding the stakes of the fourth Republican presidential primary debate:

Republican pollster Jon McHenry of North Star Opinion Research believes there’s still a narrow opening for an alternative, “as much as Donald Trump is trying to force it closed and lock it.”

But, debate performance is crucial at this stage.

“Because there’s only four, and they all get more airtime, it puts a premium on actually being knowledgeable about these issues,” McHenry explained.

Ahead of the debate, McHenry said he saw it as a make-or-break moment, particularly for DeSantis, who’d once been seen as the most likely Republican hopeful to take on Trump. But McHenry points to a recent shakeup at a pro-DeSantis super PAC, and the fact that Haley seems to have stepped into that role based on polling and support from donors like the Koch network.

To read the full article, please click here, or click here to listen to the December 5 radio story.

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Nikki Haley, Presidential Primaries, Republicans

Whit Ayres, November 14

November 14, 2023 by

Whit Ayres’ in CNN regarding Governor Nikki Haley and the Republican presidential primary:

“I think Haley is clearly the second-place candidate right now,” said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

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Ayres has famously divided the GOP electorate into three camps: an always Trump group immovably bound to him; a never Trump group implacably hostile to him; and a maybe Trump group that supported him but is wearying of the chaos that surrounds him and is open to an alternative. DeSantis, Ayres argued, has “has tried to appeal to some of the ‘always Trump’ voters, but the ‘always Trump’ voters are always Trump for a reason. Nikki Haley seems to have figured out the job is to consolidate the ‘maybe Trump’ voters who supported Trump twice but now … want a different style and different temperament.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Nikki Haley, Presidential Primaries, Republicans

Jon McHenry, October 19

October 19, 2023 by

Jon McHenry’s comments to Politico regarding Governor Ron DeSantis’ governing and campaigning style:

“Gov. DeSantis seems to be better at running for president when he’s governing rather than campaigning,” said Jon McHenry, a GOP pollster [from] New Hampshire whose firm North Star Opinion Research Group worked on DeSantis’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign. “He drives the conversation more effectively when he’s governing, and actually doing something, rather than sort of talking about what ideological perspective he might be coming from.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, Florida, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Primaries

“They’re not going to settle for second-best Trump.”

August 23, 2023 by

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times regarding Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign strategy:

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, argued in an email that DeSantis has adopted an approach to the nomination fight that was bound to fail:

“DeSantis’s strategy, and that of any candidate not named Trump, should be to consolidate the Maybe Trump voters. But DeSantis has seemed like he was going after the Always Trump voters with his aggressive language (“slitting throats”), his comment that Ukraine was just a “territorial dispute,” his suggestion that vaccine conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. would be a good candidate to head the Centers for Disease Control, and his doubling down on whether slavery might have been beneficial to some enslaved people.”

The problem with this approach, Ayres continued, is that “the Always Trump voters are ‘Always Trump’ for a reason — they are not going to settle for the second-best Trump if they can get the real thing.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Primaries, Republicans, Trump

Whit Ayres, July 31

August 1, 2023 by

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

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Primaries, Republicans, Trump

Jon McHenry, July 31

July 31, 2023 by

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.”

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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.

Filed Under: Blog, DeSantis, Featured, Florida, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Primaries, Republicans

Dan Judy, July 25

July 25, 2023 by

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.

Filed Under: Blog, Cultural Issues, DeSantis, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Republicans