President Biden’s re-election campaign seeks to appeal to older voters in an effort to tap into the power of the historically reliable voting bloc.
Last week, the president’s reelection campaign launched the Seniors for Biden-Harris effort, which will be led by first lady Jill Biden. The effort will include bingo nights and pickleball events in key states including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada and Arizona.
The pressure comes at a time when Biden has struggled to appeal to key voting groups, resulting in less than desirable numbers in polls ahead of Election Day. But older voters are proving to be a positive for the campaign. A Fox News poll released this week showed Biden gaining two points over Trump for the first time since October. And among voters 65 and older, the poll showed Biden with a 15-point lead over Trump.
“Seniors are up for grabs,” said Bob Ward, a pollster at the Republican firm Fabrizio Ward. “It’s in their interest to focus on senior voters, just as I think it’s in the Trump campaign’s interest to focus on senior voters.”
Ward worked with the Democratic firm Impact Research to survey voters in 44 of the most competitive congressional districts on behalf of AARP.According to the findingsreleased on Thursday, Biden leads by five points among voters aged 65 and over.
At the same time, voters ages 50 to 64 appear to be leaning toward Trump. The AARP poll found Trump leading by 15 points with that group.
“Older voters are not a monolith,” Ward said. “The group just below seniors is overwhelmingly Republican. It’s the most Republican age group in the entire electorate.”
Both voting blocs – 50-64 and 65+ – are some of the most motivated voters. Eighty-four percent of voters over the age of 50 said they were “extremely motivated” to vote in November, according to the AARP survey. Meanwhile, 63% of voters under 50 said the same. Another advantage of attracting older voters is that, if they are retired, they may have more time to help with the campaign through phone banking and canvassing.
Support for Biden among voters 65 and older marks a generational realignment for Democrats. Since the 2000 presidential election, the voting bloc has traditionally skewed toward Republicans.
“This was a huge shift in the Trump era,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist. “Donald Trump has angered older voters who don’t support extremism, who don’t support instability and who are totally against his disruption and lack of civility.”
This sentiment has been reflected in other recent research.Research from Quinnipiac University released last month showed that 35 percent of voters aged 65 and over said democracy was the most pressing issue facing the country, compared with 10 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds who said the same.
Biden’s data and effort come at a time when his campaign is struggling to attract younger voters, especially members of Generation Z.A survey of Harvard Youth released in late April, found that Biden led Trump by 45 to 37 percent among people ages 18 to 29. To give you an idea, Biden had a 23-point lead over Trump in the age group four years ago.
Biden has also struggled with younger black voters.A poll releasedby the University of Chicago’s GenForward project earlier this month showed Biden’s support among young Black and Latino voters.
Younger voters particularly questioned Biden over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. The issue could be detrimental to Biden in certain swing states, such as Michigan.
But in Arizona, another critical swing state, the political landscape looks different. 2020 census data revealed that 16 percent of Arizona’s population of 7.5 million people was 65 or older. Biden carried Arizona by less than a percentage point in the 2020 presidential election.
Democratic strategists argue that Biden’s performance among voters in that age group could offset the damage caused by the potential loss of younger voters.
Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist and former communications director for Vice President Harris, said Biden doing better with older voters could help “mitigate” the potential loss of young voters who are not as enthusiastic about the campaign.
“What’s helpful for Biden is that older voters are more educated, have more assets and tend to be more informed about what’s going on in the news and more informed people tend to like Donald Trump less,” Simmons said.
Simmons emphasized that young voters are still an important part of the political and cultural debate.
“The temptation to pay attention to younger voters is very high because they give a lot of energy, they are volunteers and they really shape the country’s cultural moment,” he said.
However, some data shows that younger voters are even less enthusiastic ahead of the presidential race.
AHarvard Politics Institute December Pollfound that only 49 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 who voted in the 2020 election said they will “definitely” vote in the November election.
One of Biden’s problems with young voters is that they are not as familiar with him, unlike older voters who watched his Senate tenure, multiple presidential runs and vice presidency. This dynamic played a role in the shift in the Democratic coalition that was critical to President Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012.
“It’s always helpful to remember that these age categories are not static,” Simmons said. “People who are 65 years old today were 50 years old when Barack Obama ran for president.”
“We think of Joe Biden as a very well-known person, but the truth is that voters in their 20s don’t know much about Joe Biden,” he said.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
