CNN: Senior voters tilting decisively towards Democratic congressional candidates

[fleur-de-lisa]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/19/politics/the-gops-older-voter-problem/index.html

Is the GOP having a senior moment?

Late summer surveys by CNN and other organizations show senior voters tilting decisively towards Democratic congressional candidates. That would dramatically reverse the recent pattern in midterm elections when the elderly provided a major boost to GOP candidates.

In CNN surveys conducted in early August and early September, registered voters who are 65 years of age and up preferred Democratic congressional candidates to Republicans by margins of 20 and 16 percentage points, respectively. CNN is not the only news organization to report this kind of GOP deficit among seniors. A late August Washington Post-ABC News survey found that if older voters were casting their ballots today, they would back Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives over Republican candidates by a whopping 22-point margin, 57% to 35%. Similarly, a national poll by Marist College conducted in early September found that among voters 60 years of age and up, they favored Democratic congressional candidates by a 15-point margin.

This is a potentially huge problem for Republicans: In the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections when Republicans regained control of the House and Senate, respectively, GOP candidates were solidly backed by voters 65 and up. When Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, they had a narrow advantage among senior voters.

Historically, Democrats were seen as the party of seniors. President Franklin Roosevelt made Social Security one of the landmark accomplishments of the New Deal. Decades later another Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, would push health care coverage as an entitlement for the elderly and make Medicare one of the cornerstones of his Great Society program. In subsequent elections as social issues came to the fore, seniors have tended to split their votes more evenly or side with Republicans. But in 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party and the generational and societal change ushered in by the presidential election of Democrat Barack Obama, elderly voters turned decidedly towards the GOP. Republicans helped drive that process by asserting that president Obama's 2010 signature health care reform legislation would defund Medicare. And that would be a GOP rallying cry throughout the Obama presidency.

[bearsfootball516]

1. I'm guessing a lot of seniors are worried about the GOP taking away Medicare and healthcare.

[still_one]

7. They should be, that is what Kudlow said they would do

[SWBTATTReg]

9. And they attempted or did so by passing some sort of budget balancing bill that included...

taking/reducing future retiree's benefits.

I recall already seeing this happen. By the gop no less.

[Guilded Lilly]

2. I hope we of the Crone years can wipe Republicans off the face of government!!

[Soxfan58]

6. Our way of defeating fascism

Like our parents did abroad.

[CrispyQ]

3. Someone's gotta pay for those shiny new tax cuts the 1% got.

Hmmmm, where is that cookie jar?

Maybe some GOP seniors are getting woke.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I've always been rather disappointed to see so many of my fellow seniors turn to the Republicans.

After all, there were so many people in my age group (70+) who led the protests for women's rights, civil rights, LGBT rights and to end US involvement in the Vietnamese war.

[redstatebluegirl]

5. I was at a University retirees function the other night.

This is really true, even in a red state. Now remember, these are educated people, most not originally from Oklahoma, but it did shock me.

[helpisontheway]

8. At least seniors usually vote. Nt