Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
On Election Day in Hillsborough, Virginia, on November 3, 2020, voters cast their ballots at the Old Stone School, which was used as a polling place.
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A truism in American politics is that older voters prefer the Republican Party and younger voters prefer the Democrat Party.
According to exit polls, that’s exactly what happened in 2020: Democrat Joe Biden won voters under 50, while Republican Donald Trump won those over 50. Biden’s lead among younger voters, winning 65% of voters between 18 and 24 years old, helped him overcome the fact that Trump won 52% of older voters, who make up more than half of the electorate.
In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College despite her receiving more popular votes than him, but the pattern of younger voters favoring the Democrats persisted: Exit polls showed that Clinton won more votes among voters ages 18-44, while Trump won more votes among those over 45.
2012, Republican Mitt Romney lost the election, but he did better than the Democrats. Barack Obama among voters over 45.
Voters under 30 haven’t supported the Republican Party since 1988, when George H. W. Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis. Voters over 65 haven’t supported the Democrats since 2000, when Al Gore lost the election despite receiving more votes than Republican George W. Bush.
But in this year’s presidential election, with both candidates older and their eligibility at the forefront of the debate, the old rules don’t seem to apply: older voters are gravitating toward Biden, while younger voters are turning to Trump.
New Marist Poll For example, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump received 47% and Biden received 45%, making it a close race within the margin of error.
Trump is making inroads with voters of color, polling shows him roughly equal with Biden among voters under 45. But older voters are moving in the opposite direction: far from supporting Trump, they are nearly evenly split in a Marist College poll.
The trend is spreading to other states: A Quinnipiac University national poll released in May found Biden and Trump split among younger voters, but Biden had an advantage among voters 65 and older.
While not all polls show the same level of change, the overall trends among both younger and older voters are different from past results.
Biden is now grappling with questions about his age that have dogged his reelection campaign and unsettled voters at the polls.
“Joe has been one of the most effective presidents in our lifetime not despite his age, but because of his age,” First Lady Jill Biden said at a campaign event in Wisconsin this week, part of a three-day rally designed to shore up support among older voters.
Senior voters are essentially the same generation as Biden and Trump, both of whom were born in the 1940s.
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Eric Bradner point out that older voters “lived in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War, and Biden is trying to use that era to portray Trump as a threat to democracy.”
03:01 – Source: CNN
Biden campaign aims to expand support among seniors
They also wrote, “In 2024, Baby Boomers will make up the majority of older voters for the first time — an appealing demographic shift that the Biden campaign is leveraging in Michigan and across the nation.”
In Michigan, Zeleny and Bradner spoke with Linda Van Welden, a former real estate agent who became politically active after Trump’s 2016 victory.
“I never thought I’d be one of those people holding up a political sign or getting involved, but I can’t sit back and watch this happen any longer,” she said.
I was surprised to see older voters leaning toward Biden (and younger generations moving away from him) and that older voters still have concerns about Biden’s age: A February New York Times/Siena College poll found that nearly three-quarters of voters 65 and older said Biden is too old to be an effective president, while fewer than half said the same about Trump. These figures were consistent with the general population.
CNN’s Ronald Brownstein noted last year that older voters tend to give Biden high marks for his job performance and argued that some of his policy victories, such as his push to lower Medicare drug costs, directly appeal to seniors.
Whatever the reason, Biden will need help from people his age if he hopes to overcome questions about his age and keep his job.
