Why are senior citizens turning against the GOP?

[BrainGlutton]

This poll suggests that they are –

Just 28 percent of voters 65 and older had a favorable view of the Republican Party in a national survey conducted last month by the Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, versus 40 percent who had a positive view of the Democrats. That’s a reversal from a poll Greenberg conducted in early 2011, when 43 percent of seniors saw Republicans favorably and 37 percent saw Democrats that way.

“It is now strikingly clear that [seniors] have turned sharply against the GOP,” Erica Seifert, a senior associate at Greenberg’s firm, wrote on the company’s website this week. “We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens.”

– but it’s not clear why. The only theories offered are:

The senior shift was an unexpected result that jumped out of a poll Greenberg was conducting for the Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund focused on unmarried women’s views on economic policy. Seifert believes it’s largely a reaction to the Republican-backed plan by Rep. Paul Ryan to phase in changes to the Medicare system, which dates to 2011. But the slide appears to have accelerated this year: Greenberg clocked Republicans’ advantage with the over-65 vote at 11 points in January, 6 in March and 5 in July. “That’s the sort of shift that turns the tables,” Siefert told me.

The economy is the biggest underlying factor in the shift, Seifert said. In November 2010, 49 percent of seniors said Republicans were the better party on the economy; just 34 percent said Democrats were. In the July 2013 poll, the parties were essentially tied on this metric, with 43 percent saying Democrats and 42 percent saying Republicans.

Most significantly, even on social issues, where seniors are generally believed to be reliably conservative:

In the July survey, large majorities of seniors agreed with progressive economic proposals, including protecting Medicare benefits (89 percent), raising working women’s pay (87 percent) and expanding access to child care for working parents (77 percent). But seniors also took issue with the GOP on social concerns: slim majorities called the Republican Party “extreme” on aid to the poor (53 percent), immigration (53 percent), gay rights (52 percent), and gun violence (51 percent).

Nobody analyzing this figures thinks it means the Pubs will lose the House in 2014, the shift isn’t that big, and more seniors still plan to vote Dem than Pub – but the margin is closer than ever before. What could explain such a turnabout among a hitherto reliable core constituency? Is fear for the future of Medicaid enough to explain it?

This is especially significant because voter turnout is always very high among senior citizens.

[ElvisL1ves]

Maybe they’re leaving the GOP for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else?

It’s a real conceptual barrier to try to understand anyone’s, or any artificially-defined bloc’s, attitudes only in terms of their own assessments of their own economic self-interest, but that’s what the link does. If you allow the possibility that seniors who are otherwise set financially for themselves nevertheless still want to leave a better society behind them for their children and grandchildren, that they want them to have the same possibilities that they did, then distaste for current GOP attitudes follows pretty much automatically. That includes the reflexive “gummint is bad” shit that doesn’t sit well with those who remember a time when there wasn’t a party trying to prove it. People with a habit of responsible citizenship are then drawn to the only party that practices it.

Then too, the meanings of patriotism national security are not what it was for those who grew up with the Cold War, and that detracts from the party that has most publicly wrapped itself in that flag for decades.

[aNewLeaf]

Most significantly, even on social issues, where seniors are generally believed to be reliably conservative:

I dunno. Seems like as people get older they become a bit more tolerant.
someone 25-35 is more likely, I think, to harbor specific social views that line up with GOP goals.
By the time you get to 60ish, it’s less important who wants to marry whom, and more important that medical care be available to all.

[John_Mace]

I’d like to see the actual survey and how the questions were phrased. Your cite links back to another website discussing the poll, but I didn’t see a link to the actual poll itself.

Also, from your cite:

The senior shift was an unexpected result that jumped out of a poll Greenberg was conducting for the Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund focused on unmarried women’s views on economic policy.

That also makes me wonder who was being polled.

[Chronos]

I dunno. Seems like as people get older they become a bit more tolerant.

Yes, but that’s not really the relevant measure. 70-year-old Joe Smith is probably more socially liberal than 20-year-old Joe Smith was half a century ago, but he’s also probably more socially conservative than his 20-year-old grandson Bob Smith is right now.

[BobLibDem]

With gay culture being more visible on network television, homosexuality isn’t nearly as alien and frightening to oldsters as it might have been 20 years ago. Republicans aren’t going to have near as much success exploiting homophobia as they were before.

Those that die off each year are whiter than the population as a whole, exploiting racism is less effective when your target isn’t as white as it used to be.

Seniors know that Republicans would dearly love to destroy Social Security and Medicare.

[aNewLeaf]

@Chronos

Yes, but that’s not really the relevant measure. 70-year-old Joe Smith is probably more socially liberal than 20-year-old Joe Smith was half a century ago, but he’s also probably more socially conservative than his 20-year-old grandson Bob Smith is right now.

70 year old Joe Smith was 30ish in the 60’s and 70’s.
He may be more socially conservative than someone who is 20 today.
But compared to seniors even 20 years ago, I think older folks are more accepting of social differences.

[Hermitian]

The GOP is trying to trim back medicare and SS. Old people rely on these.

People vote what is in their best interest.

QED

[DrFidelius]

These are not the same seniors who were around twenty years ago. I myself have found that the candidates chosen to represent Republicans have made it extremely difficult to support the party for the past twenty years or so.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

It’s a Democratic Party poll. It was conducted to show results the Democratic Party wants it to show. Don’t read too much into it.

[aNewLeaf]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

It’s a Democratic Party poll. It was conducted to show results the Democratic Party wants it to show. Don’t read too much into it.

From the linked article, bolding mine:

Greenberg is a Democratic pollster, to be sure. But his work is widely respected on both sides of the aisle. Republican pollster Whit Ayres didn’t question the idea that seniors are souring on the GOP. “I don’t think any Republican pollster who’s looking at the numbers is sanguine about the state of the Republican brand at this point,” he said. “You are going to see the impact of the damaged brand in every demographic group.”

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

I don’t think it’s a secret that people are turned off by the GOP’s messaging right now. I mean that you should take figures like “51% of old people think the GOP’s gun rights position is extreme” with a grain of salt. I’m as anti-gun as they get* and I don’t believe that for a second.

*subject to limitations unfortunately imposed by the Second Amendment.

[Ludovic]

@BobLibDem

Those that die off each year are whiter than the population as a whole, exploiting racism is less effective when your target isn’t as white as it used to be.

There is also the demographic shift, where new blood is being infused into the 65 year old age group as the older cohort dies off. You’d expect a couple percentages difference in the poll based just on that.

[ElvisL1ves]

Right, a 70-year-old today came to political awareness during the Sixties, with all of the views of government that the time shaped. Civil rights, skepticism about militarism, social safety net programs, racial equality that has sponsored gender and sexuality equality … what of that works in the Republicans’ favor?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Other than the fact that those people were past 65 during the last election and mostly went for Romney?

[aNewLeaf]

That’s the past- article is about the future.
Every year, it just gets worse for the GOP, for all the reasons we are discussing.

[BrainGlutton]

@John_Mace

I’d like to see the actual survey and how the questions were phrased. Your cite links back to another website discussing the poll, but I didn’t see a link to the actual poll itself.

I’m not sure, but I think it’s this one from this site. At any rate, it’s all discussed here.

N.B.: It’s not a just a Dem pollster saying this. From the Atlantic article linked in the OP:

Greenberg is a Democratic pollster, to be sure. But his work is widely respected on both sides of the aisle. Republican pollster Whit Ayres didn’t question the idea that seniors are souring on the GOP. “I don’t think any Republican pollster who’s looking at the numbers is sanguine about the state of the Republican brand at this point,” he said. “You are going to see the impact of the damaged brand in every demographic group.”

See also, from The Daily Beast:

In an unusual twist for a Democratic pollster, Stanley Greenberg this week released the first survey of what will be an in-depth look at the Republican Party over the next year. He said it was prompted by longtime colleague James Carville’s belief that what’s wrong with the GOP is not its leaders, but its voters, playing off former Georgia governor Lester Maddox’s famous comment that there was nothing wrong with his state’s prisons, they just needed a better class of prisoners. “I respect the voters and the way they think,” Greenberg said, and explained that instead of blaming the voters, he was trying to understand them in a respectful way.

<snip>

There is no one more negative about their own party than Republicans, Greenberg asserted. Disaffected moderates represent 25 percent of Republican voters and report feeling “powerless.” Hatred of President Obama—measured at 93 percent among those who identify with the Tea Party and 54 percent among moderates—unites the GOP. “Hatred of health-care reform is what gives all segments [of the party] purpose,” the survey found.

Republicans are holding on in rural and small-town America and among married men and women, but these are not the fast-growing parts of the electorate. The survey finds Republicans intensely opposed to gay marriage, strongly favoring pro-life groups, and incorporating opposition to dealing with global warming as part of their values. A significant number of moderates and “leaners” describe the GOP as “out of touch.”

A Washington Post–ABC Poll released Tuesday echoes Greenberg’s findings, reporting that only 21 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans, the lowest number since November 2009. A majority (52 percent) of Republicans think that their party is going in the wrong direction. By contrast, 72 percent of Democrats think their party is going in the right direction.

[DigitalC]

Older people aren’t turning away from the GOP, older people are dying as older people tend to do and being replaced with people who weren’t that old a few years ago and aren’t as attached to the Republican party.

[aNewLeaf]

@BrainGlutton

“Hatred of health-care reform is what gives all segments [of the party] purpose,” the survey found.

And that’s the problem, hate really isn’t a viable long-term platform.
Especially hatred of something so obviously to the benefit of everyone who isn’t wealthy.

[Bricker]

@aNewLeaf

That’s the past- article is about the future.
Every year, it just gets worse for the GOP, for all the reasons we are discussing.

How many out of the fifty states have Republican Governors?

How many have one or both houses of legislature controlled by Republicans?

Why is the Speaker of the House of Representatives a Republican?