Support from older voters is softening

WASHINGTON» The coronavirus crisis and the administration’s halting response to it have cost President Donald Trump support from one of his most crucial constituencies: America’s seniors.

For years, Republicans and Trump have relied on older Americans, the country’s largest voting bloc, to offset a huge advantage Democrats enjoy with younger voters. In critical states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, all of which have large older populations, Trump’s advantage with older

voters has been essential to his political success; in 2016, he won voters over age 65 by seven percentage points, according to national exit poll data.

But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the global pandemic, and the campaign’s internal polls, people familiar with the numbers said, show Trump’s support among voters over the age of 65 softening to a concerning degree, as he pushes to reopen the country’s economy at the expense of stopping a virus that puts them at the greatest risk.

A recent Morning Consult poll found that Trump’s approval rating on the handling of the coronavirus was lower with seniors than with any other group other than young voters. And former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in recent polls held a 10-point advantage over Trump among voters who are 65 and older. A poll commissioned by the campaign showed a similar gap.

The falloff in support comes as Trump has grown increasingly anxious about his re-election prospects, with a series of national surveys, as well as internal polling, showing him trailing in key states. The president has all but moved on from a focus on controlling the pandemic and is pushing his agenda to restore the country, and the economy, to a place that will lift his campaign.

“Trump has suffered a double whammy with seniors from the coronavirus crisis, both in terms of a dislike for his personal demeanor and disapproval of his policy priorities,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist. “If there’s a durable change with older voters, it could well cost

Trump the election.”

The demographic shift is fairly new, and officials said they attributed it at least in part to Trump’s coronavirus briefings, at which he often dispensed conflicting, misleading and sometimes dangerous information that caused alarm among a vulnerable population. At the same point in the race four years ago, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, trailed Trump by 5 points with the same group.

Among the aides who have warned the president of a softening with older voters is Kellyanne Conway, his 2016 campaign manager and a senior adviser, people familiar with the discussions said. White House officials aware of the problem have started to stage events and initiatives designed to highlight work the administration has done that will appeal to seniors.

Standing in the East Room at the White House eathis month, for instance, Trump surrounded himself with health officials as he signed a proclamation declaring May to be “Older Americans Month.”

“The virus poses the greatest risk to older Americans,” Trump said, while crediting his administration for protecting seniors by halting unnecessary visits to nursing homes nationwide and expanding access to telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries.

In recent weeks, aides also discussed investigations into nursing homes where there have been large numbers of coronavirus-related deaths, and Vice President Mike Pence has taken cameras along as he personally delivered protective equipment to a nursing home.

But the administration has hampered some of its own efforts to appeal to older voters. Trump recently rejected an expanded enrollment period for the newly uninsured, for instance.

Conway declined to discuss her conversations with Trump about seniors, but she noted that he had promised not to touch safety-net programs that affect them.

Trump, however, at various times has said he would be open to cutting safetynet programs, only to have aides walk back those comments after the fact. “At the right time, we will take a look at that,” Trump said in January of cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — a stance that Biden campaign officials said they planned to highlight in the coming months.

The Biden team also noted that a second Morning Consult poll released this past week showed that 46% of voters said they trusted Biden to protect Medicare and Social Security, compared with 41% for Trump.

Trump campaign officials downplayed any longterm electoral concerns. Older voters, they said, have long bristled at Trump’s acerbic personal demeanor, which was on display for hours every day during briefings that the president believed were beneficial to him, but that aides and Republican allies eventually persuaded him to phase out.

Biden officials said that positive sense among seniors is combined with a real fear that there will be a second wave of COVID-19 outbreak and that the coronavirus pandemic threatened their lives.

Keeping Biden and Trump polling even among older voters could be enough to make a critical difference in what is expected to be a tight race, Biden officials said.

“It’s up to the Trump campaign whether this is a temporary trend line with these voters, or not,” said Kevin Madden, who was an adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. “They have to go out there and restore confidence with these voters.”