News Clips

Whit Ayres’ comments to The Washington Post about the 2024 general election campaign:

Reelection campaigns generally favor the incumbent. But Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster and no friend of Trump, sees Biden as the clear underdog. He cites public dissatisfaction with the overall direction of the country, and notes that Trump is seen as more trusted on the economy and immigration and that an overwhelming percentage of Americans see the incumbent as too old to hold the toughest office in the world.

Yet he added, “In this sea of uncertainty, I am hesitant to make a flat statement [about the outcome in November]. With two historically unpopular candidates, it feels less stable than it appears on the surface.” Still, he argued that the Democrats’ best chance of winning today “would be to find a different candidate.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres’ comment to The New York Times about voters’ feelings about the likely 2024 election matchup:

“Exhaustion is underlying the entire attitude toward our presidential election,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “When you’ve got two people that are opposed by 70 percent of Americans who want a different choice, it creates frustration, anxiety and discouragement.”

To read the full article, please click here.

Jon McHenry’s comments to The Daily Caller regarding President Biden’s decline in support among traditional Democratic supporters:

“What is really interesting about the polling is not that President Biden is slipping among core Democratic constituencies like younger voters and Black and Hispanic voters,” Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The fascinating part is that former President Trump is gaining some of that support. That seems to be attributable to a general sense that voters think they were better off when President Trump was in office.”

…

McHenry pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal survey that found 49% of voters said Trump’s policies helped them compared to only 23% who said the same of Biden’s, which he believes could be attributable for these minority voters leaving the president’s side.

“That’s a stunning rebuke of President Biden’s tenure,” said McHenry.

…

McHenry believes the shift of younger voters away from Biden has “accelerated” since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, citing a recent poll his firm conducted in the battleground state of Wisconsin that found these individuals don’t approve of the president supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.

…

“All these polls point to Democrats nominating someone who they aren’t actually enthusiastic about and may not show up to support in the fall. As so many Democrats talk about Trump being an existential threat to democracy, it’s hard to believe they’re going to just go ahead and nominate someone who looks like a lock to lose to him,” said McHenry.

To read the full article, please click here.

Whit Ayres’ comments in The Wall Street Journal on the U.S. political system:

Asked to summarize the year 2023 in politics, Republican pollster Whit Ayres is blunt: “2023 was a terrible year for America’s political system.”

…

Meantime, the two parties appeared on track to produce a rematch in 2024’s election between Biden and Trump, a contest that polls suggest two-thirds of Americans don’t really want. The bottom line, Ayres suggests, is that “public trust in our political system is in the cellar.”

To read the full article, please click here ($).