The Winston Group

The Winston Group’s Stephanie Slade writes for US News and World Report, addressing the constant speculation surrounding the 2016 elections. Slade writes:

The idea that polls taken 18 months before the midterm elections could reliably tell us much of anything about where the electorate will be next November is almost a farce. Just one-twelfth of Obama’s second term is in the books so far; spending time worrying about who might choose to run in an election 42 months away suggests we’re working with a set of seriously misplaced priorities.

To read the full editorial, turn to usnews.com.

Winston Group vice president Kristen Soltis Anderson has a post at US News and World Report’s politics blog in which she lays out the myriad problems facing the Republican Party as it tries to make inroads with young and minority voters. She writes:

It is easy to say that the GOP’s problem isn’t a messaging problem, it’s a candidate problem. Or that it’s not a candidate problem but a demographics problem. Or that it is not a demographics problem, it’s a technology problem. Or that it’s not a technology problem, it’s a policy and solutions problem.

The hard truth is that it is all of the above.

The problems that face my party are interconnected, and a piecemeal plan for fixing the GOP is not enough. We need an “all of the above” approach to rebuilding the party, and we need to start that hard work today.

Click here to read the full post.

Mark Blumenthal wrote for the December 23rd Huffington Post on polling during the 2012 election season. Blumenthal turned to David Winston for the answer to what the purpose of polls are:

The main purpose of media polls, Republican pollster David Winston argued at a recent post-election forum, is to “tell a story.” Although they generally forecast the right winner, public polls told very different stories about horse race trends in the final weeks of the campaign. A true judgement of accuracy would take those differing stories into account.

To read the full article, turn to huffingtonpost.com

The Fix blog’s Chris Cilizza uses our updated exit poll data to take a look at the breakdown of Party ID in past elections. Some points he noticed:

What’s remarkable is the consistency of the percentage of voters calling themselves Democrats over that time period. In those eight presidential elections, Democratic party ID has never dipped below 37 percent and never risen above 39 percent.
There has been more fluctuation in Republican party ID over that time. Republicans reached 37 percent of the electorate in the 2004 election but have dipped to 32 percent in each of the last two presidential contests — the party’s lowest ebb in 30 years.

To read the full blog post, turn to washingtonpost.com.

The WG’s Kristen Soltis Anderson has an op-ed on US News and World Report, commenting on what the Republican Party should do now that the election is over.

An excerpt:

The glaring truth we Republicans have to face following this election is that there are simply not enough of us anymore. Independent voters broke for Mitt Romney by a five-point margin, but the significant numbers advantage enjoyed by Democrats put President Obama back in the White House. We have not evolved our coalition to keep up with a changing America. Given this reality and the need for the GOP to expand its ranks, what is the Republican Party offering that would persuade anyone to join our cause?

To read the full article, turn to usnews.com.

Politico’s Alexander Burns addresses how poll results prior to the election misled Republicans’ expectations of voter turnout and election results. The WG’s David Winston gives his take on the polls:

“The results fell within the 2004 result and the 2008 result, obviously closer to 2008,” said Winston, who advises the House GOP leaders — who fared well on Tuesday. “That was clearly how everybody had been describing what the potential range was. The question is, as people were assessing their individual campaigns, whether it be the presidential or down ballot for that, was how were they working through the potential scenarios as far as what could happen.”

Read more: politico.com