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Expert Predicts Possible Shift in Senior Voting Bloc
November 04, 2009The majority of people aged 65 and over cast ballots for John McCain in 2008, but older voters will not necessarily favor Republicans in future presidential elections, according to an article in the latest issue of The Gerontologist (Vol. 49, No. 5).
Author Robert Binstock, PhD, a renowned authority on seniors' voting patterns, analyzed data from the 2008 national Election Day exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, which was financed by major television networks, newspapers, and magazines.
Older people were in fact the only age group to give a majority to McCain. It was just the second time in the last 10 presidential elections, the article points out, that this population segment failed to choose the winner.
"Factors other than old-age policy issues - in particular, the partisan leanings of current older voters, the candidates' contrasting ages, and the candidates' contrasting racial identities - shed some light on why McCain received distinctive majorities from various cohorts of older voters," Binstock said.
The polling numbers show that 54 percent of voters aged 65 to 74 endorsed McCain in 2008. Binstock noted that those in this demographic were socialized to politics as youngsters during Republican Dwight Eisenhower's presidency.
"The partisan leaning of the birth cohort that is now aged in its late 60s is definitely a factor in explaining the preference of a majority of current older voters for Republican presidential candidates," he wrote.
However, baby boomers now reaching the old age category may have different political preferences. For example, in the recent election, those aged 60 to 64 - people who entered their formative teen years while Democrat John F. Kennedy was in the White House - gave more votes to Barack Obama than to McCain.
Seniors' voting choices also may be affected by attributes unique to a particular candidate. In 2008, there was evidence that voters aged 65 to 74 favored McCain because of his similar age. This particular group of older people was by far the most likely to answer "Only McCain" when asked "Which candidate has the right judgment to make a good president?" There is also the possibility that race may have been a factor, although all white voters aged 30 years and older gave McCain a substantial majority, whereas the youngest cohort of whites, aged 18 to 29 years, favored Obama.
Binstock and other experts on aging will discuss these issues at length during an upcoming symposium titled "An Obama Effect? Examining Changes in Participation, Engagement, and Politics." It will be held during the 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting of The Gerontological Society of America, which is taking place from November 18 to 22 in Atlanta, GA. An estimated 3,500 professionals are expected to attend the four-day gathering, which includes more than 400 scientific sessions featuring research presented for the first time. Visit www.geron.org/am for more information.
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA)
"Factors other than old-age policy issues - in particular, the partisan leanings of current older voters, the candidates' contrasting ages, and the candidates' contrasting racial identities - shed some light on why McCain received distinctive majorities from various cohorts of older voters," Binstock said.
The polling numbers show that 54 percent of voters aged 65 to 74 endorsed McCain in 2008. Binstock noted that those in this demographic were socialized to politics as youngsters during Republican Dwight Eisenhower's presidency.
"The partisan leaning of the birth cohort that is now aged in its late 60s is definitely a factor in explaining the preference of a majority of current older voters for Republican presidential candidates," he wrote.
However, baby boomers now reaching the old age category may have different political preferences. For example, in the recent election, those aged 60 to 64 - people who entered their formative teen years while Democrat John F. Kennedy was in the White House - gave more votes to Barack Obama than to McCain.
Seniors' voting choices also may be affected by attributes unique to a particular candidate. In 2008, there was evidence that voters aged 65 to 74 favored McCain because of his similar age. This particular group of older people was by far the most likely to answer "Only McCain" when asked "Which candidate has the right judgment to make a good president?" There is also the possibility that race may have been a factor, although all white voters aged 30 years and older gave McCain a substantial majority, whereas the youngest cohort of whites, aged 18 to 29 years, favored Obama.
Binstock and other experts on aging will discuss these issues at length during an upcoming symposium titled "An Obama Effect? Examining Changes in Participation, Engagement, and Politics." It will be held during the 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting of The Gerontological Society of America, which is taking place from November 18 to 22 in Atlanta, GA. An estimated 3,500 professionals are expected to attend the four-day gathering, which includes more than 400 scientific sessions featuring research presented for the first time. Visit www.geron.org/am for more information.
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA)
Driving Fatalities Surge on US Presidential Election Days
Sunnybrook researcher Dr. Donald Redelmeier and Stanford University statistician Robert Tibshirani have found an increased risk of fatal motor vehicle crashes on United States (US) presidential election days.
Prediction markets accurately forecast influenza activity
Influenza experts have borrowed a page from economists, creating a futures market for influenza activity that predicted outbreaks two to four weeks in advance. The influenza prediction market is presented in the Jan. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Electoral Abstention in Portugal - some explanations
The recent publication of a report on electoral abstention in Portugal, carried out by Instituto de Ci'™ncias Socias da Universidade de Lisboa - ICSUL (The Institute of Social Sciences of Lisbon University) and presented to the Home Office and to the Ministry of State Reform and Public Administration, has brought to light results in an area in which this study is pioneering. Recent electoral results such as those of the general election of 1999 and the presidential elections of 2001, that brought record levels of abstention in the history of Portuguese democracy, have accentuated a growing concern on the part of Portuguese politicians and part
French footballing loss will be Le Pen`s gain, says expert
A WORLD Cup exit for the multi-ethnic French football team will be seen as a major political boost for the country's Far Right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, says a leading French football expert. The French team must beat Denmark by two goals in the match on Tuesday (June 11) if it is to stay in the international tournament. If it loses, this will be a major victory for Le Pen, who criticised the 'black-white-brown' (the French say: 'black-blanc-beur' (1) ), multi-racial make-up of the winning team during the 1998 World Cup. Le Pen claimed that some of the foreign-born players did not know the French national anthem. A world footballing loss will be even more politically sig
Dissertation on radical rightist populism in France
In the last two decades, a new family of parties has emerged in western European politics, radical rightist populism. Radical rightist populist parties have grown and scored substantial successes in France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Austria. These parties promulgate a political message rooted in ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, and a populist critique of the political establishment. Jens Rydgren, who will defend his dissertation on the emergence of the French Front National at the Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden, argues that this wave of modern, parliamentarian, rightist radicalism first appeared in France during the first half of the 1980s. Front
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