For reasons I do not fully understand, seniors (voters age 65 and over) have not received their fair amount of media attention this election cycle. Younger voters , Hispanic and Black voters have been examined in detail as the media focuses on the gains that the Harris/Walz team has made among them. Trump’s dominance among non-college White voters has also been extensively noted.
The media’s ignoring of senior voters is perplexing when one looks at the role they played in 2020. According to CNN 2020 exit polling, just over one in five voters in 2020 (22 percent) was age 65 and over. In the key battleground state of Pennsylvania seniors made up fully 28 percent of the electorate. This compares with 13 percent of voters age 30 and younger.
Earlier this year, there was some media coverage of older voters in particular how then-candidate President Biden was doing with this demographic. Axios reported in mid-June that:
· The most recent New York Times/Siena poll shows that Biden has a 9-point lead in a head-to-head matchup against Trump among likely voters aged 65 or older.
· In a Quinnipiac University poll released last month, Biden is beating Trump by 12 points with the 65+ set.
To put this issue in perspective, over the last 50 years Democrats have only won the senior vote three times (1992, 1996, and 2000). Furthermore, the three “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are older than average. So, there can be no doubt that seniors will play an important role in this year’s presidential election.
Bill McKibben of the group Third Act points out in an insightful piece in Rolling Stone, that the evidence on seniors breaking for Vice President Harris and Governor Walz is not conclusive . However, there are some very good signs for the Democrats. In a New York Times/Sienna College poll conducted last month of voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, fully 55 percent prefer Harris while 45 percent back Trump. In a national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in late August, Harris garners 54 percent to Trump’s 44 percent.
So, the evidence as we pass Labor Day indicates that seniors are tilting towards Harris. We also need to remember that goal for Team Harris is not to win outright senior voters but to stay competitive. In 2020, Trump won 52% of seniors (47% for Biden). Right now, Harris is overperforming among senior voters when compared to Biden’s 2020 performance.
What is the reason for Harris outperforming Biden among senior voters? Unfortunately, polling can only tell us what people are thinking at a particular point in time. It cannot really tell us why people think a particular way. To determine, the why behind opinions you need focus groups. In the absence of focus group research, I would hazard a guess that Harris’ repeated attacks on high prescription drug prices and touting the Biden/Harris’s administration insulin price cap and support for letting Medicare negotiate for prescription drugs.
If the Harris campaign asked me for advice on how to win senior votes, I would tell them to keep hammering away on the insulin cap and the high cost of prescription drugs. With some increased rhetoric on the campaign trail on this issue, backed up by ad spending, Harris may just win the senior vote this year.
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