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Whit Ayres, July 25

July 25, 2023 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Washington Post on the Mike Pence campaign:

“Mike Pence is caught between a rock and a hard place. He’s too Trumpy for the non-Trumpies and not Trumpy enough for the Trumpies,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “If you say that Donald Trump is unfit for office, that puts people who voted for Trump in an uncomfortable position psychologically where they have to admit to themselves that they made a mistake. I suppose you could thread that needle by saying he was fit for office until Jan. 6th, and after that he wasn’t. But that’s really threading a needle with those folks.”

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

Republican Presidential Primary Survey

January 31, 2023 by North Star

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.

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Contest, Presidential Primaries, Republicans, Slideshow, Uncategorized

Jon McHenry, October 19

October 19, 2022 by North Star

Jon McHenry’s comments in The Boston Globe about school choice and parental rights:

School choice and parental rights, especially after the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, are often a reliable way for Republicans running in statewide races to talk about issues that are typically favorable to their campaigns, according to GOP pollster Jon McHenry.

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, Education, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Parental Rights, Uncategorized

Whit Ayres, October 8

October 8, 2022 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Hill regarding Ben Sasse leaving the U.S. Senate:

“Ben Sasse was one of the people who made the Senate work,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “And there’s a pattern of a lot people who made the Senate work who are leaving the institution, and that’s not good for the country and not good for our democracy.”
Ayres suspects that Sasse and other retiring Senate Republicans are fed up with what he called “the toxic polarization” that’s made it “difficult to do the things that led them to run for the Senate in the first place.”

To read more, please click here.

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

Whit Ayres, August 31

August 31, 2021 by Jon McHenry

Whit Ayres’ comments in The New York Times regarding Republican governors and state policies regarding the coronavirus:

Mr. Ayres, the Republican pollster, said that governors trying to control the virus policies of schools, employers and local officials were breaking with years of tradition on free enterprise and local control.
“Liberty has never meant the freedom to threaten the health” of others, Mr. Ayres said. “That is a perversion of the definition of liberty and freedom.”

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Whit Ayres, July 26

July 26, 2021 by Jon McHenry

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Washington Post regarding Republican governors encouraging residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19:

As Republican pollster Whit Ayres notes, McConnell, who endured polio as a child, has always embraced the power of vaccination. More surprising was a vaccine plug from Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, a longtime baiter of federal authorities whose reelection campaign is selling merchandise mocking Anthony S. Fauci, the White House health adviser.
…
Ayres, the Republican pollster, said the growing willingness of leaders of his party to speak up for vaccinations is a response to dangers that can no longer be ignored. “The surge is in the red states and the red counties,” he said in an interview, “and there’s a real concern about protecting the health of people who are not yet vaccinated, many of whom are our people.”

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Whit Ayres, February 3

February 4, 2021 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in Newsweek about GOP in-fighting:

Whit Ayres, a longstanding GOP pollster and North Star Opinion Research founder, took a similar view. The political consultant said it remained to be seen whether the Republican Party would still be a “viable political force” or make the fatal decision to split into two separate entities.
Asked for his view of the party’s makeup, Ayres said Trump had successfully expanded the populist wing of the GOP and built it to be the new “dominant force” in the party. Ayres cautioned that all was not over for the so-called “governing” faction.
Speaking about the battle between Cheney and the Trumpian faction on Capitol Hill, the pollster said: “It’s a small skirmish in the larger war. It’s a skirmish that, at this point, is confined to the House of Representatives’ Republican caucus”
“Just because you have a faction dominating the House caucus does not mean it’s dominating the entire party.”

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

Jon McHenry, September 9

September 9, 2020 by North Star

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.”
…
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.’”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, Coronavirus, Featured, Health Care, In the News Sidebar, Independent Voters, News Clips, Political Climate, Republicans, Uncategorized

Whit Ayres on the Democratic Primary

March 3, 2020 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments on the Democratic primary, as seen on FOX Nation:

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Presidential Contest, Presidential Primaries, Uncategorized

Whit Ayres, September 24

September 26, 2019 by North Star

Whit Ayres’ comments in Politico regarding voters’ views of President Trump and impeachment:

“People have made up their minds on Trump. It would take a momentous event to change enough minds to alter his job approval rating away from the average of 43 or 44 percent,” said Whit Ayres, founder and president of North Star Opinion Research, a Republican polling firm. “We’re so polarized and in our tribes that people will look through their current lens and determine either the president did something wrong, or Joe Biden did something wrong. The facts won’t be particularly relevant.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, In the News Sidebar, News Clips, Uncategorized Tagged With: Impeachment, Tribalism