Dr. Whit Ayres is the President of Ayres, McHenry, & Associates, Inc., a national public opinion and public affairs research firm located in Alexandria, Virginia, that provides research and strategic advice for corporations, associations, and Republican candidates for public office.  Roll Call, a widely-read newspaper on Capitol Hill, called the firm "one of the best in the nation," and the company was selected by the Republican National Committee to conduct its post-election national survey in 2000.

 The firm provided polling for Georgia Senator Paul Coverdell's upset of Wyche Fowler in 1992 and Tennessee Senator Bill Frist's upset of Jim Sasser in 1994.  Other political clients include U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Governor Bob Riley of Alabama, former Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, former South Carolina Governors David Beasley and Carroll Campbell, and the 1996 Lamar Alexander for President campaign.  Corporate clients include the Boy Scouts of America, the American Council of Life Insurers, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, Home Depot, America's Health Insurance Plans, AT&T, the Business Council of Alabama, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

 Ayres' comments and analysis appear periodically in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ABC Nightly News, NBC News, the Today show, CNN's Inside Politics and Crossfire, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, and numerous regional newspapers.

 Before establishing the firm, Ayres served as Senior Executive Assistant for Budget and Policy to Governor Carroll Campbell in South Carolina.  He has also served as a tenured member of the political science faculty at the University of South Carolina.

 Ayres graduated cum laude from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, with a major in political science.  He received an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 He is an active private pilot, flying his Beechcraft Baron throughout the southeast, and he is a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.  He is married to Rebecca I. Ayres, M.D., a pediatric radiologist.  They have one eleven-year-old daughter, Catherine.