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Whit Ayres’ comments to McCatchy News Services regarding reelection campaigns as referenda on incumbents:
“The president’s best scenario for re-election was making the election a choice between the incumbent and an unacceptable alternative,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “But both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have done a good job making the election a referendum on Donald Trump rather than a choice.”
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Whit Ayres’ comments to Reuters regarding Republicans defending the Senate majority:
But not all is doom and gloom for Republicans, who believe they can still eke out a 51-seat majority by capturing Democratic seats in Alabama and Michigan and denying Democrats victory in North Carolina, Iowa and other states with strong Republican constituencies.
“We’ve got eight to ten races that are margin-of-error races. There’s no way in the world you could suggest that those are somehow over,” said Whit Ayres, a leading Republican pollster. “They’re far from out of reach.”
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Dan Judy’s comments to The Hill regarding President Trump’s campaigning in the election’s home stretch:
The president’s tendency to return to the topic of Clinton’s emails — he raised the subject during a friendly interview with radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh last week — is especially perplexing, even to Republicans.
“He is not running against Hillary Clinton, which is unfortunate for him because she was massively unpopular,” said GOP strategist Dan Judy. “He is doing what he did in 2016, and it worked, but I just don’t see it getting him any extra votes.”
Trump does have more fertile areas to plow. He consistently performs better on the economy than on any other issue. There is a widespread belief, in and beyond Republican circles, that a reelection campaign fought on that territory would give him the strongest chance of success.
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The problem, of course, is that even many conservatives don’t believe Trump has the desire or self-discipline to stick with such a message.
“When there is a conspiracy theory about the death of Osama bin Laden you can tweet, why talk about the economy?” Dan Judy asked wryly. “He is not doing himself any favors.”
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Whit Ayres’ comments to CNN on Republican Senate candidates running ahead of the President in their state:
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, recently told CNN that Barrett is “an extraordinarily impressive woman who, if she has any political impact, will help Republicans in close races.”
“We know it’s entirely possible for Republican senators running for reelection to run ahead of the President,” said Ayres. “The question is, ‘how far ahead of the President can they run?'”
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Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times on the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign:
“At the end of the 2016 campaign, the president apparently cut back on his Twitter messages and became somewhat less visible at the time the Comey letter was becoming more and more prominent,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, referring to a letter that the director of the F.B.I. at the time, James B. Comey, sent to Congress after discovering a tranche of Hillary Clinton’s emails on a laptop used by Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of one of her top aides.
That letter is widely seen as affecting voter sentiment about Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee that year, late in the campaign, and no similar event has so far hurt Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has told aides he wants to be on the campaign trail every day and he has continued with his slashing, acerbic tweets.
“It’s not clear that seeing more of the president is necessarily a help to his campaign,” Mr. Ayres said.
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Whit Ayres’ comments in the New Statesman about changing demographics and their electoral impact in Arizona and Texas:
“The narrative [that the states will swing this year] persists because of the constantly changing demographics of the Sun Belt,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research. In particular, as Ben Walker wrote elsewhere in the New Statesman, Hispanic voters are growing in number, especially in Arizona and Texas.
Arizona and Texas are “at different stages of their evolution”, Ayres said. Arizona is much further along than Texas. In Arizona, Democrats could pick up another Senate seat (one Arizona Senate seat is already held by a Democrat) and “maybe even [carry] the state at the presidential level”.
Texas, he said, is a cycle or two away from going Democratic, “but given the massive uncertainty created by the pandemic, nothing would surprise me in electoral outcomes” in the state.
“The fact that we are even talking about Arizona, Texas… possibly going Democratic really demonstrates the impact of demographic change,” Ayres added, “and increases exponentially the importance for Republicans of reaching out aggressively to new non-white voters.”
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Jon McHenry’s comments to STAT News regarding health care and the Kansas Senate race:
“Barbara Bollier could be in the right position for Kansas on surprise billing, but it’s likely to get drowned out by her abortion position,” said Jon McHenry, a pollster for the GOP-aligned group North Star Opinion Research. “Similarly, ACA repeal may not be decisive here if the conversation skews to other issues.”
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Despite voters’ broad coronavirus anxiety, Bollier could still face difficulty incorporating the country’s pandemic struggles into her broader health care message, given Republicans’ large advantage in voter registration.
“Often 80% or more of Democrats will say they are very concerned about the effect of the pandemic, but that will drop to 50% to 60% among independents, and maybe 25% to 45% among Republicans,” said McHenry, the Republican-aligned pollster. “For some Republicans and independents, it’s more of a government control and economic issue than a ‘health care issue.’”
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Jon McHenry’s comments in POLITICO regarding a vote to legalize marijuana at the federal level:
But some pollsters say the House vote could muddle the party’s message with just weeks to go before Election Day, especially considering that Biden isn’t on board with blanket marijuana legalization.
“You’re harming your ability to defeat Donald Trump,” argued Jon McHenry, a Republican pollster with North Star Opinion Research. “He and his Republican allies get to say, ‘See, Joe Biden’s not going to be in control. Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are in control.’”
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Jon McHenry joined Episode Four of ITV’s “Will Trump Win?” podcast to talk about the election (and just a little about Liverpool):
Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico comparing the 2020 and 1980 elections:
“This election feels to me a lot like 1980,” said Whit Ayres, one of the country’s best Republican pollsters. “We had the Iranian hostage crisis, double digit inflation and unemployment. It just felt like events were spinning out of control and the president had little ability to effect positive outcomes.”
Ayres added, “There were doubts about whether Reagan was a credible alternative. They had one debate and Reagan came across as credible—and the dam broke. There are similar doubts about Joe Biden now; not his experience, but his ability to do the job. Can he persuade voters that he is up to the challenge?”
To read the full article, please click here.
Dr. Whit Ayres, president of North Star Opinion Research, co-founded Resurgent Republic with former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie. Read More...
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