Looks Like Senior Voters are Voting Like Their Lives Depend on It
By Martin Burns
“When confronted with the choice between placing a vote in the name of cultural ideology and one in the name of survival, older voters, struck profoundly by the pandemic, seemed to choose the latter. In 2016, Donald J. Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Florida, among voters 65 and older by 17 points. More than half of Cuban voters in the state, who skew socially conservative, also voted for Trump. But the virus is ravaging Florida; as of the end of May, 83 percent of Covid deaths were people over 65. Priorities might easily rearrange themselves.”
“For a Clue to How Florida May Vote, Look to the Bronx, Gina Bellafante, the New York Times, July 12, 2020
Over the last several weeks, many political analysts have observed that President Trump is not performing as well in public polling as he has in the past with older voters (especially those age 65 and over). For example, Courtney Weaver wrote for the Financial Times at the end of June:
“Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden now holds a six-point advantage among seniors in battleground states, compared with Mr Trump’s one-point lead in the survey in October 2019 and a 13-point lead in autumn 2016. Nationally, Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by one point among this age group. The results chime with recent polls from Quinnipiac University, which last month found Mr. Biden leading among voters 65 and over by 10 points, and a Fox News poll which showed Mr. Biden narrowly pulling ahead in this demographic in April.”
The following media outlets have also noted the older voters slipping away from Trump trend: the New York Times (“Trump Faces Mounting Defections From a Once-Loyal Group: Older White Voters”), the New Yorker (“Donald Trump’s Big Problem with Senior Voters”), FiveThirtyEight (“Are Older Voters Turning Away From Trump?”), the New Republic (“Trump Is Losing His Hold on the Senior Vote), NBC News (Trump has lost his senior advantage. And that could cost him in November.), and CNN (“Coronavirus is surging in Florida — and so is anxiety over Trump’s chances with senior voters”)
The importance of older voters is widely accepted by political analysts. According to Pew Research, fully 56 percent of the electorate in 2016 was age 50 and over (29 percent ages 50 to 64 and 27 percent ages 65 and over). In addition to their overall importance, older voters are critically important in key electoral states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.
If you look at potential paths to reelection for President Trump in 2020, they all go through Florida and it cannot be argued that the senior vote will play a decisive role in the Sunshine state.
Political observers are in agreement that older voters (especially those over 65) are drifting away from Trump. They are less clear about why this happening. At this time, with an ever increasing death toll from Covid, we cannot avoid any longer concluding that older voters are penalizing Trump for his handling of the Corona virus. They are the ones most at danger from the virus and they are telling us that they plan on voting like their lives depend on it.
