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Bloc by Bloc: Five demographic trends to watch on Election Day
Well, here we are. After a punishingly long, mind-bogglingly expensive, and unusually unnerving US presidential campaign, Election Day is upon us.
Over the past few months, our Bloc by Bloc series took a look at some of the voting demographics that will likely play a key role in the outcome, so as we head down to the wire, here are five key takeaways to recap:
First, this election is very much about gender and perceptions of gender roles. In part, that’s because Kamala Harris is vying to become the first female president, running against an opponent who has been found liable for sexual assault against women in the past. But it’s also because of how each campaign frames its pitch and where each is seeking support.
The Trump campaign has leaned hard into winning the support of men, young men in particular, at times embracing a kind of hypermasculinity in its messaging – Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off at the RNC has become a signature moment. The Harris campaign, meanwhile, has sought to galvanize female voters, in particular by arguing that a second Trump presidency might further restrict women’s access to abortion and other reproductive health care, charges that Trump and his running mate JD Vance have recently sought to refute. In the latest polls, there is a 12-13 point gender gap between the two candidates. Read more here.
Second, key minority blocs look set to vote Republican at higher rates than in the recent past, with potentially decisive impacts in swing states. The Latino, Black, and Arab-American votes have been dependably Democratic for decades, and it is very unlikely that Trump will win any of these groups outright. But he could very well draw significantly more support than Republican candidates have in the past, as economic perceptions, culture war issues, and key concerns such as immigration or the war in Gaza scramble traditional voting patterns. Given the strong presence of these groups in key swing states such as Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, even small shifts could have a big impact. For our look at the Black vote, see here. On the complex and shifting Latino vote (the largest minority voting bloc in the country), we took a look both before Biden stepped out and afterward. Our profile of a rapidly changing Arab-American vote in the shadow of Oct. 7 and Israel’s assault on Gaza is here.
Third, the partisan class divide is real – but with a caveat. Back in September, the historically Democrat-leaning Teamsters union decided not to endorse a candidate for the first time in decades. Why? At least partly because an internal poll showed the union’s rank and file breaking in favor of Trump, whose pledges to crack down on illegal immigration and stop import competition from abroad have been popular with this demographic. Given that the election could well turn on who wins more of the so-called “Rust Belt” – that is, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – the preferences of the working class could be decisive.
There is a caveat here, however: Among white working-class voters, Trump leads by roughly 30 points, but among non-white working-class voters, the reverse is true (most non-white working-class folks are Black and Latino). Read more about the class divide here.
Fourth, for all the attention on the youth vote, the senior circuit could be decisive. In 2020, Joe Biden managed to turn the senior vote blue for the first time in decades – whether Harris will be able to continue that trend could be decisive. For all the focus of both candidates on youth voters, the senior vote – which typically shows high turnout and relatively conservative leanings – is worth watching. The latest polls show a more or less dead heat between the two candidates among voters aged 65 and older. For more on the youth and senior votes, see here.
Fifth, take the idea of “voting blocs” with a grain of sense. These categories – Black, Hispanic, Working class, Women, Men, Young, Old – are, of course, huge oversimplifications of the preferences and experiences of tens of millions of individual people. For the purposes of analysis and polling, this is useful, but as you think about the election, it goes without saying that it’s important to remember that each person will ultimately cast their vote for reasons that are important to them, not to some group identity assigned to them by a pollster, census worker, campaign strategist, media executive, or political analyst. This may seem like an obvious point, but it’s worth remembering, particularly as you try to understand, after the fact, why either candidate won or lost.
A photo of Trump with Latino Americans for Trump
Bloc by Bloc: Harris and Trump scramble to reach Latinos
This GZERO 2024 election series looks at America’s changing voting patterns, bloc by bloc.
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With less than two weeks before Election Day, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been focusing on a diverse but potentially decisive bloc: Latino voters.
In recent days, the former president has done a Town Hall with the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision and a round table with Latino community leaders at his golf club in Doral Florida. The core of Trump's messaging has been to remind people of the pre-pandemic economy, which was boosted by tax cuts when he was president, and to paint Harris as a left-wing radical.
Harris, meanwhile, taped a prime-time interview with Spanish-language channel Telemundo in which she pledged to increase economic opportunities for Latino men and small business owners, in particular, and looked to counter Republican messaging that she is a “socialist.”
This sudden flurry of outreach is welcome, but it’s late, says Clarissa Martínez, vice president of the Latino Vote initiative at UnidosUS, a leading non-partisan Latino civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.
“It’s frankly dumbfounding that the outreach has remained so low for an electorate that proved to be so decisive in 2020,” she says.
A recent UnidosUS study showed that barely a third of Latino voters had heard directly from the Democratic campaign at all, and less than a quarter had heard from Republicans.
Latino voters are a fast-growing bloc that now makes up 15% of the electorate. Half of all growth in newly eligible voters this cycle has come from Hispanics, and more than a fifth of Latino voters will be voting for president for the first time ever this November.
Latinos have long been a largely Democratic voting bloc – over the years, about 60-70% of Hispanics have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate.
But Trump’s support among Latinos has been edging up in the past two cycles – he got 28% of the Latino vote in 2016 and 32% in 2020. (For more on why, see our broader look at the Latino vote here.)
In fact, in the months before he dropped out of the race in July, President Joe Biden was actually trailing Trump among Latino voters, clocking just 40% support compared to the former president’s 46%, according to a New York Times/Siena poll.
Harris’ entry into the race has swung things back in the direction of the historical norm. The vice president is polling at 56% among Hispanics, against Trump’s 37% in the latest poll. Trump’s support is particularly strong among Latino men, where he trails Harris by just 3 points – among women the gap is 10 times as large.
Those numbers suggest Harris will likely win more of the Latino vote than Trump, but the margins are what matters, particularly in key swing states where lots of Latino votes are up for grabs.
There are more than 600,000 registered Latino voters in Pennsylvania, which Biden won by barely 80,000 votes in 2020. In Wisconsin, which Biden won by a mere 25,000 votes, there are 180,000 registered Latinos. In Nevada, nearly one in five registered voters is Latino.
The two candidates’ focus on economic issues is no accident. Polls consistently show the top three issues for Latino voters are inflation, jobs, and housing costs. Immigration reform – where most Latinos support stronger border security alongside a path to citizenship for long-time undocumented immigrants in good standing – is barely in the top five.
As Election Day approaches, the urgency of reaching Latino voters is only rising, according to Martínez of UnidosUS, who says about a third of Latinos still say they don’t have enough information to choose.
And the key subset to watch in this cycle? “It’s the new Latino voters,” she says. “That’s where you are seeing the biggest churn between the parties. How those voters break is going to be the thing to look at.”
“But meaningful outreach is essential,” she says, “You can’t just expect people to know what you stand for.”
This article updates our more in-depth look at the Latino vote, which we published before Biden dropped out of the race. You can find that piece here. Our entire series of Bloc by Bloc profiles of key demographic groups is housed here.
Pro-Palestinian protesters rally for a cease-fire in Gaza during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 19, 2024.
Bloc by Bloc: The Arab-American vote in the shadow of Oct. 7
This GZERO 2024 election series looks at America’s changing voting patterns, bloc by bloc.
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In 2019, Mohamed S, an Egyptian-born investment consultant who had lived in New York for more than 20 years, finally decided to apply for US citizenship, for one reason:
“I wanted to vote against Donald Trump.”
But the pandemic delayed his naturalization until after the election. Next month will be the 47-year-old’s first chance to vote in a US presidential race. But this time, Mohamed says, he’s not going to cast a ballot at all.
Mohamed, who asked that we not use his last name over concerns his views might affect his business, said that while he still opposes Trump, the Biden administration’s Gaza policy has made it impossible for him to support a Democrat this fall.
“Why would I vote for a person who has provided weapons and funding that have been used to kill children who look exactly like my son, speak the same language as my son?” Mohamed asks. “That’s an outrageous thing to expect me to do.”
Mohamed’s views echo wider shifts in the Arab American community in the year since Hamas’ murderous rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, provoked an Israeli response that has killed at least 40,000 people in Gaza and displaced nearly 2 million, according to local authorities. Israel has faced charges of genocide in international courts.
A small community with big electoral power
About 4 million people in the United States identify as Arab Americans. They are a community of diverse faiths, national origins, and viewpoints. Roughly two-thirds are Christian, and one-third are Muslim. They have a large presence in key swing states like Michigan, comprising about 5% of the electorate there, and Pennsylvania, where they make up about 2%.
The war in Gaza looms large for them. More than 80% in a recent poll by the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group, said it’s their top election issue.
That marks the first time that any conflict in the Middle East has topped the list of concerns among Arab Americans, says AAI chairman James Zogby.
“It’s a genocide. And the administration’s response has been abysmal,” says Zogby, “not just in its full-throated support for Israel, but in its failure to put any restraint on Israel.”
Democrats are now paying the price
For decades, Arab Americans were a reliably blue voting bloc. Only about a third of the community ever voted Republican. In 2020, Biden got 59% of the Arab American vote against Trump’s 30%.
But the AAI poll, taken in early October, showed Trump edging out Harris 42% to 41% among Arab American voters — a 12-point swing in Trump’s favor. Expected turnout, meanwhile, has fallen from a historical average of 80% to around 60%.
Given that Biden won Michigan by less than three points in 2020, and Pennsylvania by just over one point, Arab American voters’ choices – not only about whom to vote for but whether to vote at all — could shape the outcome in November. At the moment, Harris leads Trump by roughly one point in both states.
Feeling ignored at a fraught moment
Zogby says weak outreach from the Democrat camp has hurt Harris. The Democrats’ rejection of calls for a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention stung, and the failure to hold high-level meetings with Arab American leaders — as opposed to lumping them in as part of a broader outreach to Muslim Americans — has made the community feel marginalized at a painful time.
“I’d love for her to call for a cease-fire, of course, but if she just got up and gave a speech in Michigan and said, ‘I want your support, I know we have differences, but I know we can talk them through, it would make a difference,” says Zogby.
Some Arab American voters are going further than simply staying home on Election Day.
“Six months ago, I was a Democrat,” says Bishara Bahbah, a Jerusalem-born, Harvard-trained academic and journalist. Now he is the founder of Arab Americans for Trump.
“I came to the conclusion that not only do I not want to vote for Biden or Harris, I want to actually punish them,” says Bahbah, a Palestinian Christian who grew up in East Jerusalem and now lives in Arizona.
Financed by Bahbah himself, Arab Americans for Trump has been coordinating events with Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-born businessman and father-in-law to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as well as former Ambassador Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s acting director of national intelligence. Bahbah has met with Trump directly at least once, he says.
The Trump campaign has sought to expand its small base of Arab American support with pledges to cut taxes, crack down on undocumented immigration, and defend traditional views on gender, which plays well in many socially conservative Arab households.
A recent endorsement by Amer Ghalib, the Yemen-born mayor of Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb and the only US city with an all-Muslim local government, has helped the Trump effort.
Bahbah dismisses concerns about Trump’s history of strongly pro-Israel policies and his recent pledge to bring the US “closer [to Israel] than it’s ever been.”
“The difference is the Democratic camp has blood on their hands,” says Bahbah, who says he lost three relatives in an Israeli airstrike on an ancient church in Gaza last October. “President Trump does not.”
Bahbah is confident that Trump, without reelection to worry about, would make a push for a two-state solution after all.
“I think he is interested in leaving a legacy of a peacemaker.”
Not everyone who has soured on the Democrats shares that optimism about Trump.
“I’m not naive enough to believe that Trump would be better,” says Mohamed, the New York-based consultant. “I just don’t see a scenario in which Kamala Harris wins and things change in Gaza.”
But Zogby still sees more opportunity with a Democrat in the White House than not.
“There’s a coalition that exists in the Senate around Palestinian rights,” he says. “I would rather be fighting alongside them with a Democratic president than with a Republican president or a Republican Congress that wouldn’t give a shit at all.”
“People tell me it can’t be worse,” he says, “but it can always be worse.”
Boeing workers listen to union leaders speak as Boeing's Washington state factory workers vote on whether to give their union a strike mandate as they seek big salary gains from their first contract in 16 years, at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington, U.S. July 17, 2024.
Bloc by Bloc: Can Dems win back the working class?
This GZERO 2024 election series looks at America’s changing voting patterns, bloc by bloc.
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One of President Joe Biden’s biggest selling points was his “Scranton Joe” appeal to working-class voters — who have increasingly voted Republican in recent years. Kamala Harris, on the other hand,was said to embody the college-educated, coastal elite the Democratic Party is accused of increasingly gearing itself toward. Switching candidates, many argued, could come at the expense of key “Rust Belt” states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
These states will be battlegrounds this year, and working-class voters will play an outsized role in deciding which way they’ll sway. In fact, in all six key swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — the working-class voter population is higher than the national average.
Who are working-class voters? People who do not have a college education – around 62% of the US – or those who receive an hourly wage rather than a salary. Forty-six percent of Republicans consider themselves working class, compared to 35% of Democrats.
How are the candidates competing for their votes? According to Eurasia Group analyst Noah Daponte-Smith, Trump is making the same promises he made in 2016 and 2020: “that he will bring back working-class manufacturing jobs, make the economy better than ever, and fight for the interests of the common man.”
Meanwhile, he says, Harris is trying to attract working-class voters “by emphasizing Democrats’ economic record, pointing to the risks of a Trump presidency, and nominating a VP candidate with working-class roots.”
According to the Split Ticket crosstab aggregator – a comparison of polls and candidate preferences by demographic subgroups – Donald Trump leads Harris by 11 points among non-college graduates. That number jumps to a 28-point lead among white non-college graduates. But there are discrepancies: A new UMass Amherst poll shows her eight points ahead among low-income voters.
Still, Princeton professor Robert Wuthnow, who has spent much of his career researching rural and working-class voters, expects the majority of the working class – and an even larger portion of white working-class men – to side with Trump. “I tend to think that white working-class men are going to have difficulty – for some because of gender, for some because of race,” says Wuthnow about the likelihood that Harris can win their vote.
“There is a growing division between the working class and the elite, or people they perceive as having professional jobs and better educations than they do,” says Wuthnow. “Kamala will have a difficult time bridging that gap.”
Daponte-Smith agrees. He believes that while Dems can “somewhat abate” the trend, they can’t fully reverse it.
One way Harris is trying to bring back the working class is with her vice presidential pick. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is a former teacher and US Army National Guard veteran who has been a champion of unions. He graduated from a regional branch of the University of Minnesota and is the first Democrat on a presidential ticket in half a century not to have attended law school.
“My sense is that Tim Walz, as Harris’s VP, is geared precisely toward attracting the kinds of moderate, working-class, salt-of-the-earth people that Obama won in 2008 and 2012 but who defected to Republicans in the last two cycles,” says Deponte-Smith. “He is an extremely effective communicator who has extensive experience in winning over working-class, right-leaning white voters. So I think he’s an asset to Harris in this respect.”
Meanwhile, Trump – even after spending four years in the Oval Office – is still painting himself as the outsider, or at least a change agent in a system that many working-class Americans do not believe represents their interests. That belief is backed up by the numbers: Fewer than 5% of Congressmen come from working-class backgrounds. Trump was a millionaire by age 8, but he is trying to boost his blue-collar credentials by choosing JD Vance – who grew up in extreme poverty in rural Ohio – as his running mate.
Early on, third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. attracted a considerable number of working-class voters, but he has since sunk in the polls to a mere 5%.
What about non-white working-class voters? Much of the working class in the US is Black and Hispanic, which is even more important to recognize since Dems have just nominated the first Black female presidential candidate in US history.
“Trump appears to know that he has a strong base of support among the white working class, and has been aiming to attract Black and Hispanic working-class men,” says Daponte-Smith. “If that’s successful, it will boost him in the swing states.”
“The working class in the upper Midwest is much whiter than in the Sun Belt,” says Daponte-Smith. “This means the working class will likely be much more Republican-leaning in the Upper Midwest,” meaning Harris has a better chance at winning in swing states like Arizona or Nevada.
How are unions leaning? Although the power of unions has been declining for decades, Wuthnow says their endorsements still play a significant role in shaping how members vote.
On Wednesday, the United Auto Workers endorsed Kamala Harris – a disappointing blow to Trump, who made a show of courting unions during the Republican National Convention by giving the Teamsters President Sean O’Brien a keynote speech despite the Teamsters declining to endorse either candidate. However, surveys shows that the majority of members of both the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers support Trump.
It’s still the economy, stupid. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act was a $500 billion bet that investing in US manufacturing and infrastructure would help Democrats repave inroads in working-class communities. Despite progress, the bet is not paying off politically because stubbornly high inflation is exacerbating frustration at over 40 years of stagnated wages.
Today’s real average hourly wage of $29.03 has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. Meanwhile, the prices of some critical big-ticket purchases like housing, higher education, and healthcare have been getting steadily pricier. “Their real living wage has been stagnant for a very long time, and it’s also declining relative to the salaries of college-educated workers,” says Wuthnow.
Harris’s early campaign ads have made promises that should appeal to workers, including bringing down insulin prices, taking on the power of the big banks, corporate price gouging, and other concerns that most working Americans can relate to.
Trump, meanwhile, wants to slash illegal immigration, raise tariffs, and increase the minimum wage – policies that may appeal to voters hurt by the exodus of manufacturing and stagnating wages. But the proposed tariffs – including a 100% tariff on foreign vehicles – are expected to further raise consumer prices and are unlikely to generate a significant number of manufacturing jobs.
The Democrats’ biggest challenge is helping voters make the connection between the party’s policies and lower prescription costs or the new manufacturing jobs popping up across the country. “If Kamala can make that case that the Biden administration has been good for working-class people, then I think she’s got a chance of appealing to some of those voters,” says Wuthnow.
“The difficulty is that the messaging on the Trump side is so disconnected from anything in the real world that he can make lots of arguments about inflation or the threat of immigrants coming in and taking away jobs, and probably have quite a bit of mileage.”
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris poses for a picture with Jordynn Dudley, soccer player at Florida State University, Lynda Tealer, senior vice president of championships at NCAA, and members of the women and men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Champion teams, in Kamala's first public appearance since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, on the South Lawn of the White House, Washington, U.S., July 22, 2024.
Bloc by Bloc: How the youth and senior votes will influence the US election
This GZERO 2024 election series looks at America’s changing voting patterns, bloc by bloc.
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“Holy shit. Biden’s out,” I heard an older man in front of me at the airport say on Sunday, July 21. At JFK’s Terminal 4 – where people don’t even stop to tie their shoes – Joe Biden’s announcement of his withdrawal from the presidential race stopped travelers in their tracks.
In the week since, Biden’s move seems to have breathed new life into the campaign, with Democrats raising over $200 million in campaign donations in just a few days. Vice President Kamala Harris quickly won endorsements from the party’s senior leaders to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Election of the ages
Age dominated the conversation around this campaign from the beginning. Although Biden’s decades-younger replacement – Harris is just 59 – quells concerns that Dems and Republicans had about his ability to serve another four years, age remains a key factor in this year’s election. The success of both candidates, after all, depends on their ability to woo both the youth and the senior vote, which both appear to be in play as they mull decades-long political party preferences.
When Biden was running, election polls had turned conventional wisdom on its head about these voting blocs: Some showed young voters, who have long tended to align with the left, leaning Republican, and seniors, who have long favored Republican candidates, tilting Democratic. But reactions to Harris’s entrance suggest a return to more traditional trends, with her recovering lost ground among young voters but struggling to hold onto Biden’s lead with older voters.
Winning over youths
This year, there are 52.6 million eligible youth voters (aged 18-29), with particularly sizable presences in key swing states like Michigan and Minnesota, where youth voter turnout rates are the highest in the country. And while it’s hard to generalize, polls show the top issues for youth voters are the economy, immigration, abortion, and foreign policy.
“Kamala is brat.” In under a week, Harris’s youth campaign drummed up more support from young voters than Biden’s ever did – transforming Biden’s eight-point deficit into an 18-point lead for Harris among young voters.
Harris’s stances on two important youth issues are clear: She strongly advocates for abortion rights and is perceived as more critical than Biden of US involvement in Gaza. Both are expected to work to her advantage.
Her team has also been leaning heavily into the memes and buzz surrounding her on social media, making inroads with young voters. She has gained endorsements from youth voting groups like Voters for Tomorrow and Dream for America, as well as Gen-Z popstar Charli XCX, who tweeted “Kamala is brat” — a reference to her viral new album and a nod of approval to the new candidate.
But Eurasia Group Managing Director Jon Lieber questions the longevity of Harris’s momentum, citing her weak performance as both vice president and as a presidential candidate in 2020. “Is this election going to be about Harris, the person, versus Donald Trump, who Americans know and either love or hate very well?” he asks. “Or is it going to be about Kamala Harris, the meme, running against Donald Trump?”
While abortion, climate change, and foreign policy tend to dominate the conversation surrounding the youth vote, their importance is often overstated among this constituency. For voters of all ages, the most important issue is the economy. Inflation and the cost of living will impact the youth vote, and Harris’s association with the Biden administration’s struggles to keep both down may hurt her.
“Trump just does better on the top issues in this campaign, which are inflation, the economy, and immigration,” notes Lieber. Meanwhile, Harris as vice president, he says, was “kind of been relegated to a D-list of policy issues.”
Trump’s youth campaign, meanwhile, has centered largely on economic matters. He has focused on youth-oriented platforms and influencers, such as appearing on a podcast with Gen Z influencer Logan Paul, or launching a successful TikTok account that now has 7.5 million followers.
His team is also leveraging the power of youth organizations like Turning Point Action to energize young conservatives. Trump’s policy messaging to youth voters hasn’t been clear, but when he has targeted younger audiences, he has either spoken about the economy or bashed Biden – a strategy that’s now half-moot.
Turnout and third-party candidates
Youth voters are notorious for not showing up on Election Day. Historically, that has tended to hurt Democrats. For more than 10 election cycles, the youth turnout rate has been at least 10 points below the national average, but the 2020 election saw a record-high youth turnout of 51%.
Following Harris’s entrance to the race, 72% of people under age 30 report being very likely or certain to vote, up from 64% before Biden dropped out – a trend that the Generation Lab’s Cyrus Beschloss says could help Harris win an “Obama level” youth vote.
Third-party candidate RFK Jr., meanwhile, is polling overall at just 6% and stands no chance of winning the presidency, but he could play a spoiler. Some 8% of younger voters say they would pick him if the vote were held today. By pulling even a small percentage of the youth vote away from Trump or Harris, RFK Jr. could have a decisive impact.
Winning over seniors
The last election saw over 55 million citizens over age 65 cast their vote, making up over 30% of the electorate. Seniors are an outsized constituency in retirement-friendly, warm-weather, low-tax swing states like Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. Ninety-five percent of voters aged 65 and over say they are very likely, if not certain, to cast ballots in November.
The key senior issuesare the economy, immigration, and democracy. But “the economy” means something different to grandparents than to their grandkids, says Clayton Allen, a US politics expert at Eurasia Group. While younger voters worry about economic opportunity, older voters are asking, “Am I going to have the support I need to continue to live my life? Are you going to cut Medicare or Social Security?”
Biden ran a very smart senior campaign that allowed him to turn the silver vote blue for the first time in 20 years. Biden and Kamala had been meeting seniors on the pickleball court and at bingo game nights as a part of his “Seniors for Biden-Harris” initiative, which has helped them touch base on issues like lowering prescription drug costs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and capping insulin prices.
But Harris, who seemed poised to inherit Biden’s lead among seniors, is now polling two points behind Trump with this demographic, 49% to 47%. If she can’t keep the margin close in November, Harris could be in trouble.
The reason for seniors’ return to the Republican Party isn’t clear yet, and polling will take a week or two longer to start returning more reliable information. NYTimes/Siena’s latest survey shows a majority of older voters believing Trump would make a stronger leader than Harris, 61% to 46%.
Still, AARP notes that Social Security is a key issue for 80% of senior voters. Currently, this seems to benefit Harris as she has worked as a co-sponsor of the Social Security Expansion Act and received the endorsement of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare – a group that also endorsed Biden. But in this election, it has become a battleground issue. “Social Security is really an up-for-grabs issue [as] Democrats only have a three-point advantage… so the parties are basically tied,” Jeff Liszt, partner at Impact Research, explains.
So far, this election season has seen 34 criminal convictions, a failed assassination attempt, and the presumptive Democratic nominee dropping less than a month before the Democratic National Committee. And there are still three months to go. We’ll be watching to see whether Harris can keep up her momentum with young voters and woo back some of the senior votes she’ll need or whether Trump manages to rewrite his playbook to take on Harris and win back some of the youth vote he’ll need to prevail.
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