"Are Seniors Souring on the Republican Party?"

[applegrove]

Are Seniors Souring on the Republican Party?

by Molly Ball, The Atlantic (Huffington Post)

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/are-seniors-souring-on-the-republican-party-20130811

"SNIP.........................


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."

More seniors still said they plan to vote Republican than Democrat in 2014, 46 percent to 41 percent. But that 5-point margin is down from the 21-point margin seniors gave the GOP in 2010, according to exit polls. In 2012, voters 65 and over were Mitt Romney's strongest age group, favoring the GOP nominee by 12 points. (Romney outpolled his two GOP nominee predecessors, John McCain and the 2004 campaign of George W. Bush, who both won seniors by 8 points.)

The shift is particularly significant, Seifert noted, because seniors are the most reliable voters in the electorate -- and the most likely to turn out in the presidential off-year of 2014. Among all voters, Republicans still led the generic congressional ballot in Greenberg's poll, but by a single point, 44 percent to 43 percent. The poll of 841 likely 2014 voters was conducted by cell phone and land line July 10 to 15 and carries a 3-point margin of error in either direction.

........................SNIP"

[calimary]

1. Not fast enough.

Funny that so many of them would embrace the very party that wants to yank all their retirement/Social Security/Medicare/pensions and other stuff they seriously depend upon - out from under them.

I feel that same bewilderment about a friend of mine - a woman, a union member, a mother of a daughter of childbearing age, a single parent, a parent who's relieved that at least her younger child will be covered under her insurance plan til he's 26... and yet she STILL votes republi-CON...

[Fridays Child]

2. k/r

[SoCalDem]

3. Seniors are always in flux.. oldest dying, and youngers joining the club

It does not take a crystal ball to see that the GOP is wanting to undermine the financial security of seniors and impoverish their 40-ish "children"..

People tend to forget about abortion.guns/gays/immigration when you start messing with the money...

[Cha]

4. k&r

[Egnever]

5. Ugh

Among all voters, Republicans still led the generic congressional ballot in Greenberg's poll, but by a single point, 44 percent to 43 percent

We need congress to change. I fear we aren't going to get it.