At the last minute, when the Day of the Dead will be followed by the Day of Terror, the result of the presidential elections is volatile. But if you want to risk your savings on something, here's a safe bet:
Voter turnout will be higher in the rapidly growing 65 and older age group than anywhere else. This has been the case since 1988 and it is not likely to change next week. In 2020, 72% of registered seniors voted compared to the national promedio of 62% for all age groups, with turnout of just 48% for voters ages 18 to 24.
In other words, my age group could very well determine the outcome between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
So how are we leaning?
There is no easy answer, despite polls and headlines that suggest otherwise.
A CNN story said Harris “may be the first Democratic candidate to win over seniors since Al Gore,” citing a September poll that gave her a 50% to 46% lead. A New York Times/Siena poll had Harris leading Trump by 2 points among seniors in early October after trailing him the previous month.
“We could end up remembering 2024 as the year the gerontocracy was removed from office,” the New Republic said.
But have you ever gotten a sunny forecast on your weather app and then looked out the window and seen the rain falling? Polls can be equally volatile, and in fact, a Pew Research Center Poll in early October gave Trump a 51% to 47% lead among seniors, concluding that “Trump is the favorite among older voters.” and the men; “Harris does better among younger voters and women.”
So I reached out directly to older voters to see how they assessed things, starting with a Trump supporter I used to meet with merienda a year, to find out if he still supported his man. Dana Martin, 70, has left California for Idaho since we last spoke and told me that her neighborhood, in a Boise suburb, is full of other conservatives who fled California.
I mentioned polls that suggest Harris leads the traditionally conservative bloc of older voters and asked Martin if he thought that was because older people remember a time when a presidential candidate didn't use profanity or insults.
Martin noted that polls, which he doesn't trust, are inconclusive, and said that while he still cringes at times when Trump speaks, “I don't think any of his ramblings will cost him the election.”
What will win him the election, Martin predicted, is inflation, gasoline prices, energy costs, crime and immigration.
“When Trump came up with a statement that he was not going to tax Social Security benefits, I think that was a big plus,” Martin said. (Economists argue that such a move would further stress the system.) Later, Martin texted me to add that a bank manager in Idaho told him that “seniors have left retirement due to rising taxes.” costs of food, fuel and services.”
In Rancho Palos Verdes, Norman Eagle, 82, thinks Trump's antics can be appalling and, for a presidential candidate, “the insults are beyond anything I've ever experienced in my life.” Eagle added that as a moderate who did not vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016 but opted for Trump four years later, “I find their personal qualities distasteful.”
But he will vote for Trump anyway.
Because?
Because he believes Trump will be better on the border and the economy, and because Trump has overturned political correctness.
Eagle told me that he had been a loyal Democrat as a young man, but that he switched parties when he left teaching to run his father's corrugated box company, where he struggled with bordadura issues and saw the world from a different point of view. . His transformation has cost him more than one friendship, he said, and he moved away from a lifelong best friend with whom he had gone to elementary school in Los Oportuno.
I asked him to put me in touch with the friend.
“I don't see how anyone with any kind of moderate leaning can support Donald Trump,” said Michael Bridge, 82, who lives in the San Fernando Valley and has spoken to the Eagle again.
Bridge, a retired certified public accountant, fears Trump is a threat to Social Security, Medicare and Obamacare. He believes Trump has “greatly diminished the honor of being a politician.”
“My wife and I are depressed,” Bridge said, because a “dumb” society is being misinformed by biased news sources, posing a threat to democracy, putting the United States in “a dangerous place” and giving a horrible example to humanity. rest of the world.
Fortunately for Bridge, women could influence the election.
A September AARP poll found that women 50 and older prefer Harris by 12 points, listing the top seven issues: the cost of living, immigration, threats to democracy, abortion and reproductive rights, Social Security and Medicare, employment and unemployment, and the environment and climate change. And they represent 52% of the electorate, with similar leads in many of the critical swing states.
In July, I met two women who were taking a vaivén class at the Culver Metropolis Senior Center, and I checked in with them again this week to get their thoughts on how voting for people 65 and older will play out. . Laura Clines, 71, and Carolynn Middleton, 74, will vote for Harris.
Trump, Clines said, is “a big burlar” who “has no integrity” and didn't do a great job as president. “Look what he did at the border. “He keeps blaming Harris, but he caused a huge disaster by separating families and taking children.”
Middleton is not at all surprised by the way Trump smears Harris (who is black, Asian, and would be the first female president), calling her “slow” and “dumb as a rock” and accusing her of being “a shitty vice president.” ”
“I'm surprised that people are surprised,” Middleton said. “Does it cross the line? Yes, but that's what he does.”
Invoice Bekkala, 65, of West Hollywood, sent me a list of Trump outrages, hypocrisy, vulgarity, lies, insults and assorted parodies that is longer than this column and is still a work in progress. (To name just a few: “seems strangely obsessed with the size of the late Arnold Palmer's penis,” “declared a female rival ineligible because of her face,” “sings the praises of corrupt and violent dictators,” “threatens to imprison his enemies”, “he represents the antithesis of everything Jesus stood for, but he claims to be a Christian”).
“Trump is the nightmare we can never wake up from,” Bekkala told me.
But we are not powerless.
We can vote.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
CTl">Source link