In the battle for the White House, voters like Teresa Smith, a retiree in rural Georgia, could hold significant sway over the outcome of the election as the political leanings of older Americans show signs of shifting.
Smith, 72, voted for Donald Trump in the last two elections and was likely to do so a third time when President Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee. But with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, she says she’s now undecided on whom to vote for — or even whether to vote at all.
With Trump, “I just wish he’d shut up sometimes and talk about things that matter,” she said. “He’s just not a moral person, I don’t feel.” But when it comes to Harris, “I agree with her on birth control and abortion, but that honestly is the only thing I agree with her on.”
Once a reliable group for Republicans, senior voters have been trending toward the left as the baby boomer generation, which came of age during the 1960s and ’70s, now comprise a majority of the voting bloc. (Harris, 59, is herself among the youngest baby boomers, born in 1964, the last year that’s considered part of the generation.) In 2020, Trump beat Biden among seniors by 5 percentage points, a drop from the 12-point lead for Republicans in 2012, when Mitt Romney did better among older voters than then-President Barack Obama.
“These voters, as a group, became politically aware during the civil rights movement, women’s rights and Watergate,” said Bob Ward, a pollster with Fabrizio Ward who has been polling older voters for the AARP. “Their politics were defined in an era that collectively can be seen as a little bit more center-left.”
While these older voters say they are motivated by some of the same issues driving younger voters, they also come with a unique set of concerns over cuts to Social Security, prescription drug costs and the toll of caring for an ailing spouse or parent. Many seniors also live on fixed incomes and have felt a different economic reality than younger adults, who may have benefited from rising wages over the past several years to help offset higher costs.
Smith and her husband have struggled to stretch their monthly Social Security income of around $4,000 as their costs have increased. When asked how she feels about the state of the economy, she said: “It sucks.”
“The grocery store is a big thing,” she said. “You go to the grocery store and everything is $5.”
Health care expenses have weighed heavily on the couple. The premiums for both of their supplemental health insurance plans are $7,600 a year and the cost of Smith’s Type 2 diabetes medication recently increased from $109 to $132. While the Biden administration has been making efforts to lower prescription drug prices and capped the price of insulin at $35 a month, Smith says she hasn’t felt the results.
About half of seniors rely on Social Security for 50% of their household income, and 1 in 4 depend on it for at least 90% of their income, according to the Social Security Administration. The average Social Security check was around $2,000 at the start of the year and adjusts annually for inflation.
“If Social Security is a major source of your income, imagine how important the issues like inflation are to you and your monthly budget,” said Ward. “It’s a big deal, and so we see that issues around inflation are huge among older voters.”
Trump — after earlier this year suggesting he would make cuts to Social Security and Medicare — has recently said he would protect the program and proposed making Social Security exempt from federal income tax. About half of Social Security recipients make enough income to have their benefits taxed, according to the Social Security Administration.
Harris has said she would strengthen Social Security by increasing taxes on the wealthy, and as a senator she supported legislation that would increase the amount of income subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Harris has also been touting the work the Biden administration has done to lower some prescription drug prices and cap the out-of-pocket costs to Medicare recipients.
“Seniors will be a critical part of the winning Harris-Walz coalition this November, and the stakes couldn’t be higher — that’s why the campaign is working every day to show up and earn their support,” said Harris campaign spokesman Seth Schuster.
Polls show a tightening race between Trump and Harris among seniors, with Harris appearing to pick up support compared to Biden. A Pew Research Center poll this month found Trump led Harris by 5 points among seniors, down from a 10-point advantage over Biden in July.
Other polls have shown a tighter race with less movement. In a national NBC News poll from September, Trump and Harris were in a virtual tie among senior voters, unchanged from where the matchup stood in July, when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee.
At a Trump rally in North Carolina this week, Phil Martin, 73, said he and his wife have struggled to afford food on their Social Security checks, going from paying around $125 a week on groceries to $225 for him and his wife. Martin, who lives near Charlotte, retired from FedEx in 2011, and his wife, Pam, retired in 2018 after working for Wells Fargo.
“We’re on a fixed income and grocery prices are just crazy. We can’t afford food, hardly,” said Martin, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and plans to do so again in 2024. “Trump’s going to change all that. He’s going to make the economy better, like he did last time.”
At a Harris event the same day in Pennsylvania, Denise Meyer echoed a similar financial struggle. At 72, she would like to retire from her job as a nurse in the Pittsburgh area, but doesn’t feel she can afford to do so and worries about her longer-term financial security.
“The reason I’m still working is because I really can’t afford to retire,” Meyer said. “A lot of us are working longer, not because we want to, but because we have to. I feel that Kamala, she knows the struggle.”
But for other seniors with significant investments in the stock market and who own their homes, the past four years have bolstered their nest eggs. The S&P 500 has increased more than 90% over the past five years and home prices nationwide are up around 50%.
“The dichotomy between the well-off seniors and those that are less well-off is even greater than it would be for younger people,” said Gary Schlossberg, a global strategist for the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “The wealth disparities are greater even than the income disparities, which have opened up quite a bit over the years. There really is a gulf.”
At the same Harris event in Pennsylvania this week, Dick Edgecombe, 76, a retired construction lawyer from a suburb of Pittsburgh, was on the other end of the economic spectrum. He said he feels considerably better off than he was four years ago despite an increase in the cost of living.
“My investments are worth as much as ever because the stock market is doing so remarkably well,” said Edgecombe, who is planning to vote for Harris. “I’m fortunate that my wife and I have the means to pay the bills and so does our daughter. But we’re not oblivious, we’re not blind to the fact that we’re very lucky, and there are plenty of people in this country who aren’t as well-off.”
In northern Michigan, Gary Allen, 66, is among those more liberal-leaning voters who have aged into the senior bracket. After a career in blue-collar jobs, he retired to care for his wife, who has dementia. He said some of the top issues for him include addressing climate change and preserving rights for women, minorities and those who identify as LGBTQ.
“Women’s right, Black rights — I grew up with that, and no doubt I was influenced by all of that,” said Allen, who said he plans to vote for Harris. “When I grew up, I was aware of being a white man and knowing that things were skewed towards me.”
Despite the prominent role older voters are expected to play in the election, the issues affecting them have at times been drowned out by more hot-button issues, like abortion access, immigration and issues around race and gender. Among the messages reaching voters on television, ads about abortion and the economy are dominating the landscape, with a smaller share of ads mentioning Medicare and Social Security.
“This is still a group that does not feel like policymakers have really heard them or understand what they’re going through economically,” said Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican strategist who had been polling and conducting focus groups with older women voters for the AARP. “They are a group that is deserving of incredible amounts of attention from our policymakers and candidates because they still are the wild card.”
