Pollster · Works for one party

North Star Opinion Research

Research draft

Polls since 2024: 1
Latest poll ended: March 17, 2025
Record vs. results, relative: R+2.7

Polls from the VoteHub polling API, used under CC BY 4.0. Each result links to the pollster's or sponsor's own release. Imported once a day; a poll VoteHub later changes keeps its earlier version on record here.

§1About

Drafted by AI from the public sources cited. Each sentence links to its source.

North Star Opinion Research describes itself on its about page as a national public opinion research firm in Alexandria, Virginia that conducts surveys and focus groups, and names Whit Ayres as founder and president and Jon McHenry and Dan Judy as vice presidents.^1,2 Its history says Ayres started it with Cheryl Martin in Atlanta in 1991 as Ayres and Associates, that it became Ayres, McHenry and Associates in 1999, moved to the Washington area in 2003, took its current name in 2012 and opened an Atlanta office in 2023.¹ Defending Democracy Together published the toplines of a March 13 to 17, 2025 survey of registered voters about DOGE whose pages carry the North Star Opinion Research name.³

Kind: Works for one party¹
Founded: 1991¹

§2Who it works with

Why this matters: Owners, news partners and the firms behind a poll's interviews shape what gets asked, how, and what gets published.

News partners

Univision (2020–now). Univision News published national and state Latino voter polls in February and September 2020 that its releases say North Star conducted with Latino Decisions.^4,5

Polls jointly with

Latino Decisions (2020–now). Univision News releases from February and September 2020 say its national Latino voter polls were conducted by Latino Decisions and North Star Opinion Research.^4,5

Fieldwork or panel by

Dynata (2025–now). The questionnaire for its March 2025 survey published by Defending Democracy Together has interviewers introduce themselves as calling from Dynata.³

Founded by

Whit Ayres (1991). Its about page says Whit Ayres founded the firm with Cheryl Martin Glenn in 1991.¹

Led by

Whit Ayres. Its about page lists Whit Ayres as president.¹

Published with

Names its polls have been published under, alongside other pollsters or news outlets.

Univision/Latino Decisions/North Star Opinion Research: Latino Decisions, Univision

§3Whom it works for

Why this matters: A firm that also works for one party's campaigns can still publish accurate polls, but readers deserve to know.

Works for Republican candidates or groups. Its about page says it conducts research for associations, nonprofits, corporations and Republican candidates for office at all levels, and its political client page lists Republican party committees, among them the RNC, NRSC, NRCC and RGA, and no committee of another party. The about page also mentions one joint project with The Mellman Group for the Alliance for American Manufacturing. This rests on the firm's own description and the clients it names.^1,6

Republican National Committee. Its political client page lists the Republican National Committee.⁶
National Republican Senatorial Committee. Its political client page lists the National Republican Senatorial Committee.⁶
National Republican Congressional Committee. Its political client page lists the National Republican Congressional Committee, and its about page mentions work on an NRCC independent expenditure campaign.^1,6
Republican Governors Association. Its political client page lists the Republican Governors Association along with several state Republican parties.⁶
Marco Rubio. Its political client page lists Marco Rubio as a U.S. senator and former Florida House speaker, and its about page says it worked for his 2016 presidential campaign.^1,6
Ron DeSantis. Its political client page lists Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.⁶
Lindsey Graham. Its political client page lists U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.⁶

Of its 1 poll listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 1 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁷.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 7 federal committees reported paying North Star Opinion Research $511,520 for polling, surveys or research^8,9,10,11. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 0 Democratic, 4 Republican, and 3 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

The largest payers, by amount paid for polling, surveys or research. Only federal committees report to the FEC; state and local campaigns, work paid through another consultant, and polling billed as consulting are not here. Matched by the payee name on the filing: NORTH STAR OPINION RESEARCH; NORTH STAR OPINION RESEARCH INC; NORTH STAR OPINION RESEARCH INC.; NORTH STAR OPINION RESEARCH, INC..
Committee	Kind	Party it reports	Paid for polling	Between
UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP')	Super PAC	None reported	$201,720	October 4, 2023 – May 18, 2026
NRCC	Party committee	Republican	$134,400	August 15, 2024 – October 24, 2024
LF PAC	Super PAC	None reported	$48,000	November 29, 2023
BACK THE BOLD	PAC	None reported	$45,000	January 26, 2023
CHAPMAN FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Republican	$37,400	June 10, 2026 – July 7, 2026
CHARLIE HATCHER FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Republican	$30,000	December 8, 2025
MIKE DUGAN FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Republican	$15,000	May 29, 2024

§4Record against results

Why this matters: The one test that doesn't depend on other polls: how close a firm's final polls came to what voters did.

From FiveThirtyEight's final public data^12,13: general-election polls between a Democrat and a Republican in the last three weeks before each election, compared with the certified result. FiveThirtyEight rated each name polls were published under separately. Across all 8,957 such polls, the average miss was D+0.7, so the relative figure takes out the misses every pollster shared that year.

Error is the poll's D−R margin minus the result's; D+ means it showed Democrats doing better than they did.
Published as	Polls	Elections	Average miss	Relative to other polls	Typical size of miss	538's last rating
North Star Opinion Research	9	1998–2016	R+3.2	R+2.7	3.2 pts	1.1 of 3 · 1% partisan work
Univision/Latino Decisions/North Star Opinion Research	6	2020	D+5.3	D+1.4	5.3 pts	Not graded (inactive)

ABC News closed FiveThirtyEight in March 2025; its data stops at the 2022 elections. 2026 results will be added once states certify them.

§5Its polls

The 1 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	With	Paid for by	Sample
March 13–March 17, 2025	Job approval · Donald Trump	Disapprove 51 · Approve 46		Republican-aligned sponsor	1,000 RV

§6What we looked for and didn't find

No ownership beyond its founders and officers was found.
No Univision poll by the firm after 2020 was found, so the end date of that arrangement is not known.
Its association and nonprofit client page lists many organizations but gives no dates, so no standing non-news client is recorded; Defending Democracy Together is recorded only as the publisher of one 2025 survey.
Searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction by the firm.