Older people tend to vote in elections at a higher rate than younger people. This is because when you’re rooted in your community, you have more incentive to take an interest in it. It’s also because the more wealth and assets you have the more you pay in taxes, and the more you pay in taxes the more interest you have in how various governments allocate their resources.
And, at least for people who are retired, whose children are grown, they have fewer things competing for their attention and time.
One reason Democrats have struggled in midterms and local elections in recent decades is because their base of support is younger than the Republicans’ base of support. Presidential elections are so high profile that most people get themselves to the polls without much prodding, so the Democrats’ relative difficulty in turning out their base tends to make a bigger difference in lower profile elections.
The Biden administration’s college loan forgiveness program was largely aimed at firing up their younger (not to mention, more educated) base. But another way to skin the cat is to actually win the elder vote.
Democrats in key races around the country are making an aggressive push for older voters, a key bloc in lower-turnout midterm elections, citing both their own work to lower prescription drug costs and hammering the GOP for suggesting changes to Social Security.
The Republicans’ strongest pitch is on inflation, which hits elders on a fixed income particularly hard. But the GOP is vulnerable on prescription drug costs and the sanctity of Social Security.
Social Security and prescription drug costs provide two potent issues for the party. The AARP survey found 82% of voters over 50 years old in key congressional districts said Social Security would be an important factor in their vote, and 69% said the same of the cost of prescription drugs.
And nearly 9 in 10 said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who supported allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs or a candidate who protects Social Security from cuts.
The Democrats can win the older vote, but they have to get the message out. Right now, they aren’t where they need to be:
A Quinnipiac University poll, released Wednesday, found the GOP with a 51% to 43% advantage among those over 65, and with the two parties tied at 47% among voters age 50 to age 64. An AARP survey, released earlier this summer and conducted by a bipartisan duo of pollsters, found roughly three-fifths of the persuadable voters in the country were over the age of 50.
Fortunately, the Democrats appear to understand both the task at hand and its importance to their midterms success.
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In general, Democrats have done a pretty good job over the past 18 months of putting together a record of accomplishment (and putting Republicans on the other side of those accomplishments) that allows them to go to numerous constituencies and credibly ask for their votes this fall: elders on Social Security and prescription drugs/Medicare; young people on climate and student loans; workers on defending unions; women and LGBTQ people on abortion and bodily choice/integrity, etc.
Since we do have Republicans on record this cycle saying in so many words that they want to do away with social security and Medicare, I say make them eat their words. I know that my parents do complain about inflation – being on a fixed income is what it is. But they also understand that losing SS and Medicare would be catastrophic for them. And then there are folks around my age who have already contributed to these benefits for decades (almost four decades in my case). Doing all the right things and then having nothing to show for it? That’s a real risk now. So us older Gen-X-ers also need to be reminded what’s at stake. As for myself, the GOP will have to pry my social security check (once I qualify) from my cold dead fingers.