The highest percentage of voters of any age group with concentrations of voters in key states.
Looks like Jeb will have to start trimming the elderly from voter roles along with minorities.
Another article from the Sunday NY Times.
Bush's Popularity With Older Voters Is Seen as Slipping
By ROBIN TONER
Published: October 19, 2003
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 ? President Bush's support among older voters has dropped substantially in recent months, eroding recent Republican gains and highlighting the importance of this critical electoral bloc in 2004, political strategists and analysts say.
The trend underscores the stakes for Mr. Bush in the current Congressional negotiations aimed at creating a long-promised prescription drug benefit in Medicare, which covers 40 million elderly and disabled Americans. Negotiators passed a self-imposed deadline on Friday for reaching agreement, but vowed to complete their work before Congress adjourns, which is expected to be sometime next month.
Mr. Bush's popularity has declined over all since early summer, but some recent polls suggest that he lost significantly more ground among voters 65 and older than he did among younger Americans. Politicians in both parties consider older voters to be particularly important because they are much more likely to vote than younger people, and because they are heavily concentrated in states that are often presidential battlegrounds, like Florida and Pennsylvania.
Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, a longtime Republican campaign strategist, said, "It's still a very fluid vote that can swing on a dime."
A poll conducted this month by The New York Times and CBS News showed that Mr. Bush had a 41 percent approval rating among the 65-and-older voters, his lowest among any age group. That was down from 44 percent in July and 63 percent in May.
Similar trends have been reported this fall by the Pew Research Center. The latest Gallup Poll, released this week, showed that even as Mr. Bush's overall approval rating had risen to 56 percent from 50 percent during the past month, voters older than 65 remained his weakest age group. Forty-nine percent of them approved of the job he was doing, compared with 60 percent of those 30 to 49.
Analysts in both parties cite the economy, the stock market and the situation in Iraq as major factors in the slippage, along with more traditional concerns for older Americans like Medicare and the cost of prescription drugs.
Representative Robert T. Matsui of California, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: "With low interest rates and a sluggish economy, they're the group that's probably harmed the most. They're not getting the rate of return they would have expected with the savings they have."
Mr. Matsui added that while low inflation is generally an advantage for those living on fixed incomes, "health care costs have gone up unabated, and that's the area they're most concerned about."
Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster, said that despite recent improvements in the stock market, which is closely followed by retirees, "there's a lot of ground to make up." That could be hurting Mr. Bush's standing among some older males, or contributing to what Mr. Goeas described as "grumpy old men."
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who works with Mr. Goeas on a bipartisan survey known as the Battleground Poll, said that the aftermath of the war in Iraq, including the cost of reconstruction, also helped explain the erosion of Mr. Bush's support among older voters. "Seniors had really moved toward Bush on the security issue during the war, and now they're moving back," she said. "They hate spending the $87 billion over in Iraq."
Ms. Lake added that "this is one group that doesn't like deficits, because they feel they jeopardize Social Security and Medicare.'
Democrats, who pride themselves on their advocacy of Social Security and Medicare, have long relied on the votes of older Americans. But that bloc has been increasingly up for grabs in recent years, in part because of the passing of the heavily Democratic generation that came of age with the New Deal, but also, strategists say, because Republicans have grown far more adept at cultivating older Americans.
In 2000, Mr. Bush lost the 60-and-older vote to Vice President Al Gore 51 to 47 percent, but Republicans carried it in last year's Congressional elections, as well as the Congressional elections of 1998, 1996 and 1994. The Republican victory margin was particularly wide in 1998, when President Bill Clinton was in the throes of the impeachment struggle; the margin was widely attributed to older voters' concerns over Mr. Clinton's values.
Mindful of the importance of this group, many Republicans consider it a top priority to deliver a Medicare drug benefit before next year's election. This could be, many Republican strategists have argued, a transformational event in American politics ? a Republican president and a Republican Congress producing the biggest expansion of Medicare, a signature Democratic program, since the program's creation.
But the effort to produce a popular benefit with $400 billion over 10 years has not been easy; the bills that emerged from the House and Senate fall far short of what many working people typically receive, with large co-payments and gaps in coverage. Many older Americans have also voiced concerns to their lawmakers that they could end up losing coverage they already get from their former employers, which is sometimes better than what the government would provide.
Jack Banister, a retiree in Hanover, Ind., and a strong supporter of Mr. Bush, who was interviewed for the recent New York Times/CBS News Poll, said: "I'd sure like them to leave the prescription drug thing alone. A lot of us have worked all our lives to prepare ourselves for retirement and put in position our drug care system. And the federal government coming in is likely to screw that all up."
Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, an advocacy group aligned with the A.F.L.-C.I.O., contended that "the more seniors know about the prescription drug benefit, the more they don't like it."
But Charles W. Jarvis, chairman of the United Seniors Association, a conservative group often aligned with the drug industry, said, "Seniors want personal health choices and tangible policy results, not endless policy critiques and unaffordable pie-in-the sky proposals." He said that Mr. Bush's popularity might be "leveling," but that it remained "extremely strong" because "he's maintained an aggressive role on these domestic issues."
Still, a new poll for Emily's List, a Democratic fund-raising group, identifies older voters as a prime area of vulnerability for Mr. Bush, asserting that many are driven by deep concerns about Social Security and the cost of health care. Geoff Garin, the pollster who conducted the survey, said that Mr. Bush's push for private accounts in Social Security would only exacerbate his problems by 2004.
Mr. Davis, the Republican Congressional strategist, countered, "It's way too early to figure out what will happen, except that they will continue to be a critical vote."
Looks like Jeb will have to start trimming the elderly from voter roles along with minorities.
Another article from the Sunday NY Times.
Bush's Popularity With Older Voters Is Seen as Slipping
By ROBIN TONER
Published: October 19, 2003
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 ? President Bush's support among older voters has dropped substantially in recent months, eroding recent Republican gains and highlighting the importance of this critical electoral bloc in 2004, political strategists and analysts say.
The trend underscores the stakes for Mr. Bush in the current Congressional negotiations aimed at creating a long-promised prescription drug benefit in Medicare, which covers 40 million elderly and disabled Americans. Negotiators passed a self-imposed deadline on Friday for reaching agreement, but vowed to complete their work before Congress adjourns, which is expected to be sometime next month.
Mr. Bush's popularity has declined over all since early summer, but some recent polls suggest that he lost significantly more ground among voters 65 and older than he did among younger Americans. Politicians in both parties consider older voters to be particularly important because they are much more likely to vote than younger people, and because they are heavily concentrated in states that are often presidential battlegrounds, like Florida and Pennsylvania.
Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, a longtime Republican campaign strategist, said, "It's still a very fluid vote that can swing on a dime."
A poll conducted this month by The New York Times and CBS News showed that Mr. Bush had a 41 percent approval rating among the 65-and-older voters, his lowest among any age group. That was down from 44 percent in July and 63 percent in May.
Similar trends have been reported this fall by the Pew Research Center. The latest Gallup Poll, released this week, showed that even as Mr. Bush's overall approval rating had risen to 56 percent from 50 percent during the past month, voters older than 65 remained his weakest age group. Forty-nine percent of them approved of the job he was doing, compared with 60 percent of those 30 to 49.
Analysts in both parties cite the economy, the stock market and the situation in Iraq as major factors in the slippage, along with more traditional concerns for older Americans like Medicare and the cost of prescription drugs.
Representative Robert T. Matsui of California, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: "With low interest rates and a sluggish economy, they're the group that's probably harmed the most. They're not getting the rate of return they would have expected with the savings they have."
Mr. Matsui added that while low inflation is generally an advantage for those living on fixed incomes, "health care costs have gone up unabated, and that's the area they're most concerned about."
Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster, said that despite recent improvements in the stock market, which is closely followed by retirees, "there's a lot of ground to make up." That could be hurting Mr. Bush's standing among some older males, or contributing to what Mr. Goeas described as "grumpy old men."
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who works with Mr. Goeas on a bipartisan survey known as the Battleground Poll, said that the aftermath of the war in Iraq, including the cost of reconstruction, also helped explain the erosion of Mr. Bush's support among older voters. "Seniors had really moved toward Bush on the security issue during the war, and now they're moving back," she said. "They hate spending the $87 billion over in Iraq."
Ms. Lake added that "this is one group that doesn't like deficits, because they feel they jeopardize Social Security and Medicare.'
Democrats, who pride themselves on their advocacy of Social Security and Medicare, have long relied on the votes of older Americans. But that bloc has been increasingly up for grabs in recent years, in part because of the passing of the heavily Democratic generation that came of age with the New Deal, but also, strategists say, because Republicans have grown far more adept at cultivating older Americans.
In 2000, Mr. Bush lost the 60-and-older vote to Vice President Al Gore 51 to 47 percent, but Republicans carried it in last year's Congressional elections, as well as the Congressional elections of 1998, 1996 and 1994. The Republican victory margin was particularly wide in 1998, when President Bill Clinton was in the throes of the impeachment struggle; the margin was widely attributed to older voters' concerns over Mr. Clinton's values.
Mindful of the importance of this group, many Republicans consider it a top priority to deliver a Medicare drug benefit before next year's election. This could be, many Republican strategists have argued, a transformational event in American politics ? a Republican president and a Republican Congress producing the biggest expansion of Medicare, a signature Democratic program, since the program's creation.
But the effort to produce a popular benefit with $400 billion over 10 years has not been easy; the bills that emerged from the House and Senate fall far short of what many working people typically receive, with large co-payments and gaps in coverage. Many older Americans have also voiced concerns to their lawmakers that they could end up losing coverage they already get from their former employers, which is sometimes better than what the government would provide.
Jack Banister, a retiree in Hanover, Ind., and a strong supporter of Mr. Bush, who was interviewed for the recent New York Times/CBS News Poll, said: "I'd sure like them to leave the prescription drug thing alone. A lot of us have worked all our lives to prepare ourselves for retirement and put in position our drug care system. And the federal government coming in is likely to screw that all up."
Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, an advocacy group aligned with the A.F.L.-C.I.O., contended that "the more seniors know about the prescription drug benefit, the more they don't like it."
But Charles W. Jarvis, chairman of the United Seniors Association, a conservative group often aligned with the drug industry, said, "Seniors want personal health choices and tangible policy results, not endless policy critiques and unaffordable pie-in-the sky proposals." He said that Mr. Bush's popularity might be "leveling," but that it remained "extremely strong" because "he's maintained an aggressive role on these domestic issues."
Still, a new poll for Emily's List, a Democratic fund-raising group, identifies older voters as a prime area of vulnerability for Mr. Bush, asserting that many are driven by deep concerns about Social Security and the cost of health care. Geoff Garin, the pollster who conducted the survey, said that Mr. Bush's push for private accounts in Social Security would only exacerbate his problems by 2004.
Mr. Davis, the Republican Congressional strategist, countered, "It's way too early to figure out what will happen, except that they will continue to be a critical vote."
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