Just a few weeks ago, the Pew Research Center announced that millennials overtook baby boomers as the largest generation in the country. More than 72 million strong, those born between 1981 and 1996 eclipsed their elders, a demographic reality that was inevitable.
For the last decade, I have been one of the loudest voices preaching that Republicans are in trouble with this massive cohort of younger voters, that policy positions on both cultural and economic issues have increasingly put the GOP out of step with the millennial generation. Many of these trends have continued with the emergence of Generation Z, which tends to share many of the political views of its elder brothers and sisters, with a dash of heightened worry about climate change and emphasis on gender, racial, and gay and transgender equality.
I am here to tell Republicans that while their struggle with younger voters still remains a critical long-term challenge, an even graver short-term threat has emerged: declining support among seniors.
Despite double-digit losses among young voters over the last decade, Republicans have still maintained some electoral successes due to their support among older voters. The generation gap has cut both ways, with poor showings among the young being matched by strong showings among the old. And though millennials now outnumber boomers in raw numbers, older voters remain more likely to show up at the polls (increases in youth participation in the last midterm elections notwithstanding).
Exit polls have not always shown a sharp generational divide, with young voters breaking heavily Democratic and older voters breaking heavily Republican. In the 2000 election, exit polls suggested young voters and their grandparents were similarly split. By 2004, a generation gap had begun to emerge, and George W. Bush lost young voters by 13 points while winning voters aged 65 and up by 11 points. By 2012, the gap had widened, and Republicans had slid much further with the young, losing voters under age 30 by 23 points while still winning seniors by double digits.
But by 2016, according to the network exit polls, the generation gap closed ever so slightly, and at both ends. President Trump still lost young voters by nearly 20 points, only very slightly improving over Mitt Romney’s margin with this group in 2012. But compared to Romney, Trump had slipped just a bit, only winning voters over age 65 by 7 points.
However, early in Trump’s presidency, he was still able to count on voters over age 65 as one of his strongest groups. Month after month after month of Quinnipiac polls in spring 2017 showed voters over age 65 giving Trump the highest job approval of all age groups.
But the story looks quite different today.
Notably, while it may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis and the disproportionate health effects being felt by senior citizens, the virus alone does not explain this shift in fortunes. In February, even before the COVID-19 crisis had fully gripped the nation, Quinnipiac showed Trump’s job approval among voters aged 65 and up was only 42%, with 54% disapproving. In March, it had bounced upward to a 48% approval but then fell back down in April to 43% as the crisis continued to unfold.
The story is also playing out in critical places on the 2020 electoral map. In key swing states, the finding that Trump is struggling with seniors led to some jaw-dropping cross tabulations, such as Trump supposedly losing to former Vice President Joe Biden among Michigan seniors by 19 points — the sorts of margins you’d expect to see among Generation Z.
Whether Trump will win a larger share of young voters in 2020 than he did in 2016 remains to be seen. There is some evidence that he will not, that young voters remain turned off by his presidency even as there are signs that some may be underwhelmed by his opponent. Regardless, Republicans should still seek out opportunities where they can to open doors with young voters who are disinclined to give them a second look.
But the challenge Trump is facing with seniors is very real, and the evidence is mounting. It did not start with the coronavirus crisis, but it has been made even more acute during this time, when nursing homes are overwhelmingly being hit hardest and poor handling of the public health situation can seriously endanger the lives of people whom Trump relies upon most at the ballot box.
