Political Climate

Whit Ayres, August 11

August 11, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Philadelphia Inquirer regarding campaigning with significant mail-in balloting:

Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who has worked on many races in Florida, where mail voting is prevalent, said it “complicates life enormously” for campaigns, “because you need to start advertising earlier, start getting out the vote earlier, but then you need to extend those efforts all the way up through Election Day.”

But other Republicans worry that Trump’s diatribes could hamper GOP turnout.
“It’s a concern that trashing the idea of mail voting is going to suppress Republican votes,” Ayres said. “Republicans could be leaving a whole lot of votes on the table if they discourage their own supporters from voting by mail.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest

Whit Ayres, August 11

August 11, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Washington Post regarding politics and the pandemic:

“The pandemic obviously changes the way politics will be conducted in a dramatic fashion. But beyond that, the pandemic heightens the importance of the election,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “In many ways, the pandemic has proven to the country that politics really matters and who gets elected really matters in ways that few other events of our lifetimes have done.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

Whit Ayres, August 8

August 10, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Hill on legislation to address the coronavirus:

But strategists warn that taking too tough a line in the negotiations could backfire for both sides.
“The most important thing is to get a package passed — period. That’s far more important than the details of what’s in it for most voters,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
“Who knows how much more time we have with this virus? But if you look at the 1918 flu pandemic as an example, we may not even be halfway through it at this point,” he added. “In an emergency, you spend what you need to try to address the problem and then figure out how to pay for it later.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

Whit Ayres, July 17

July 17, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments to National Public Radio regarding Republicans and demographic changes:

The party is indeed in danger of losing power as a consequence of not having followed the autopsy’s recommendations, according to Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
“For the most part, the Republican Party has done the opposite of what was recommended in the 2013 autopsy,” he said. “That’s part of the reason why so many rapidly changing demographic states are now in play for the Democrats that used to be solidly Republican — states like Arizona and Texas and Georgia and North Carolina.”
Trump found short-term success, he says, but at a cost, as America’s electorate grows more diverse with every passing year.
“For the Republican Party to be successful in the long run. It’s going to have to adapt to a changing America, not react against it,” he added.

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest, Republicans, Trump

Whit Ayres, July 10

July 10, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times regarding tone and the 2020 election:

Yet this week, in interview after interview, suburbanites described Mr. Trump as a polarizing and deeply flawed messenger on the most searing issue of the day. “College-educated suburban women do not want to support someone who is perceived to be intolerant on racial issues,” said Whit Ayres, the veteran Republican pollster. “That has been true for many years, and is particularly true now, after the George Floyd killing.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest, Trump

Dan Judy, June 30

June 30, 2020 by North Star

Dan Judy’s comments in The Hill regarding the Republican Party, President Trump, and race:

Another Republican strategist, Dan Judy, noted that there were real implications for Trump, and to some extent the broader GOP, with key voting blocs.
Racially charged rhetoric from the president, Judy said, “hurts [the GOP] among key constituencies that it desperately needs: suburban voters — and white suburban women, to be very specific. It also energizes nonwhite voters against the president. So it is potentially a double whammy at the presidential level.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Presidential Contest, Republicans, Trump

Whit Ayres, June 25

June 26, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Atlantic on increasing electoral challenges for Republicans in the once solid South:

Even the Republicans relatively confident that Trump’s grip on rural voters will allow him to hold most, if not all, of these states recognize the implications of a trend that has them losing ground in the communities that are preponderantly driving economic and population growth.
“The trends of 2016, ’17, ’18 are continuing apace, with continuing weakness of the Republican brand in suburban areas that had traditionally voted Republican, coupled with strengthening of the Republican brand in rural areas that had traditionally voted Democrat,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who has long specialized in southern suburbs, told me. “The problem, of course, is that the Republicans are trading larger, faster-growing areas for smaller, slower-growing areas, and the math does not work out in the long run with that sort of trade.”
…
The core political question in the large Sun Belt metro areas may be whether residents are grateful that their governors have given them more freedom to resume daily activities or resentful that they have put them at greater risk by reopening so widely. Ayres said the answer is likely some of both. “I really think there’s a limit to how long you can enforce a rigid lockdown in a country where freedom and liberty are core values,” he told me. “That said, it is now impossible to dismiss this pandemic as a hoax or just the flu or any of the other dismissive appellations that have been applied to it.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Demographics, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Republicans

Whit Ayres, May 4

May 5, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments on political credibility in Sahara Reporters:

There are “three keys to credibility,” says Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant. “One, never defend the indefensible. Two, never deny the undeniable. And no 3 is: Never lie.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate

Whit Ayres, May 3

May 3, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments to Bloomberg News regarding re-opening the economy during the coronavirus pandemic:

“You’re balancing competing values: the importance of the economy and the food chain and the importance of public health,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “You’re making judgment calls with no obvious answers.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Featured, In the News Sidebar, Jobs and the Economy, News Clips, Political Climate

Dan Judy, April 17

April 17, 2020 by North Star

Dan Judy’s comments in The Hill regarding public views of the coronavirus pandemic:

There are “individual choices and behavior regardless of what the government says,” said GOP strategist Dan Judy. “If people aren’t ready to go back, they are not going to go back. And right now, people are still worried.”
…
For now, the outcome simply cannot be known.
“It’s an extremely difficult decision from both a political and policy standpoint. For any president, this would be an extremely hard decision,” said Judy.
“The difficulty of it gets lost in the whole Trump circus. If Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln was president, it would still be an extremely hard decision.”

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Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Political Climate, Trump