Older, white, educated voters helped
Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Now, they are trending
toward Democrats in such numbers that their ballots could tip
the scales in tight congressional races from New Jersey to
California, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll and a data analysis of
competitive districts shows.
Nationwide, whites over the age of 60 with college degrees
now favour Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point
margin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling during the
first three months of the year. During the same period in 2016,
that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10
percentage points.
The 12-point swing is one of the largest shifts in support
toward Democrats that the Reuters/Ipsos poll has measured over
the past two years. If that trend continues, Republicans will
struggle to keep control of the House of Representatives, and
possibly the Senate, in the November elections, potentially
dooming President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.
“The real core for the Republicans is white, older white,
and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a
tsunami,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political
scientist who closely tracks political races. “If that continues
to November, they’re toast.”
Asked about the swing, Republican National Committee
Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel cited robust fund-raising and said the
party would field strong campaigns in battleground states. "We
are not taking a single vote for granted,” she said in a
statement.
John Camm has been a Republican since the Nixon
Administration, but the 63-year-old Tucson accountant says he
will likely support a Democrat for Congress in November. He is
splitting with his party over access to health insurance as well
as its recent overhaul of the nation's income tax system. He
also supports gun control measures that the party has rejected.
"I'm a moderate Republican, and yet my party has run away
from that," Camm said. "So give me a moderate Democrat."
Camm is not alone in his worries about healthcare. The
number of educated older adults choosing "healthcare" in the
Reuters/Ipsos poll as their top issue nearly tripled over the
past two years, from 8 percent to 21 percent. The poll did not
ask respondents precisely what their concerns about healthcare
were.
Typically though, voters' concerns are varied. Some fear the
repealing of the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack
Obama's signature effort to offer subsidized health insurance to
millions of Americans and expand healthcare to the poor. Others
cite high prescription drug costs and the high cost of
healthcare in general.
Grey vote magnified
The potential impact of any swing to Democrats is magnified
given that older, educated adults are reliable voters. They also
make up a sizeable portion of the voting population in many
districts where elections are close.
How they vote could decide elections in as many as 26
competitive congressional districts where Democrats have a shot
at winning a seat. A Reuters analysis of U.S. Census data shows
highly educated older voters make up about 5-10 percent of the
population in those areas. Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to
win control of the House of Representatives.
More broadly, older white Americans, regardless of their
level of education, are still more likely to vote for
Republicans than Democrats, but the Republican advantage with
this group has been trimmed by about 5 percentage points when
comparing the first quarter of 2018 with the first quarter of
2016.
Disproportionate power
Older, educated voters have even more clout in the Arizona's
2nd Congressional District, where John Camm lives.
They make up about 10 percent of the population there, the
analysis shows. Adjacent to the University of Arizona Tucson
campus and including some of Arizona's few liberal pockets, it
is Arizona's most competitive district, said Paul Bentz, an
Arizona strategist and pollster who has worked on numerous
Republican campaigns.
Older voters in the 2nd district - both with and without
college degrees - were 40 percent of voters in the 2016 election
that kept Congress in Republican hands and brought Trump to
power, Arizona voter data reviewed by Reuters shows.
Bentz said the shift toward Democrats in the Tucson area
could be enough to determine the outcome, but he cautioned
against reading too much into the increased concern about
healthcare. He said Republicans could still win voters with
arguments focusing on immigration and support for the military.
Older, educated voters are also nearly 10 percent of the
adult population in northern New Jersey's hotly contested 11th
Congressional District, three hotly contested Southern
California districts, and highly competitive seats in Illinois,
Texas and Virginia's 10th.
Rising anxiety
Nationally, Democrats plan to campaign strongly for older
voters, focusing on issues such as taxes, healthcare and the
economy as campaigns heat up later this year, party strategists
said. Republicans, meanwhile, are touting the benefits of their
tax cuts and the improved economy.
In an ad that began rolling out last week in
Indiana, Priorities USA Action, the largest Democratic Party
fundraising group, highlights increases to the federal deficit
caused by Republican tax cuts. "Now there's a plan to cut
Medicare to pay for it," the ad says, a line designed to raise
older Americans' anxiety about the government healthcare program
for over 65s.
Priorities spokesman Josh Schwerin said it plans to spend
$50 million on such ads in several states, including Arizona,
Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Voters between the ages of 60 and 65 are particularly
worried about healthcare, said Brigid Harrison, a political
scientist at Montclair State University in New Jersey, because
they are paying ever higher private health insurance premiums
and are not yet eligible for Medicare.
Kenneth Johnston, 82 and a registered Republican who was
shopping with his wife on a recent day at a Sprouts Farmers
Market store in Green Valley, south of Tucson, said he is
unhappy with his party and has mixed feelings about Trump.
But he hasn't yet decided how he's going to vote. "I'm
worried about healthcare, but sometimes I just worry about
everything," he said. "I'm old."
* The Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll provides a snapshot
of public opinion by surveying more than 65 000 adults during
the first three months of 2016 and 2018, including more than
15 000 people over the age of 60.