Analysis: For Romney, some troubling signs among older voters

 

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON | Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:36am EDT

(Reuters) – Even before his running mate was booed by a lobbying group for older Americans on Friday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was losing support among such voters, whose backing is crucial to his hopes of winning the November 6 election.

New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks – since just after the Democratic National Convention – support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points.

Romney’s double-digit advantages among older voters on the issues of healthcare and Medicare – the nation’s health insurance program for those over 65 and the disabled – also have evaporated, and Obama has begun to build an advantage in both areas.

Voting preferences among seniors could change in the final six weeks of the campaign, but the polling suggests that a series of recent episodes favoring Obama and the Democrats could be chipping away at Romney’s support among older Americans.

Romney’s selection of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate put the federal budget and Medicare at center stage in the campaign. But the debate over spending and entitlement programs that Romney seemed to be seeking has not unfolded the way Republicans wanted.

At the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 5, former President Bill Clinton gave a folksy but blistering critique of Ryan’s plan to revamp Medicare, warning that it could leave seniors unprotected from escalating healthcare costs.

Meanwhile, Democrats’ efforts to portray Romney as a wealthy former private equity executive with little sympathy for the less fortunate got a boost last week, from Romney himself.

On a secretly recorded video released by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, Romney was shown telling supporters at a $50,000-a-person fundraiser that 47 percent of Americans would never vote for him because they do not pay federal income taxes, feel they are “victims,” and depend on government benefits.

Democrats accused Romney of dismissing a range of Americans, including elderly people who depend on government programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

Romney’s campaign rejected that, but the recent polls suggest that such claims may be resonating with Americans aged 60 and older, who for months had been the only age group to consistently support Romney over Obama.

Analysts say that if Romney cannot reverse the trend among older voters, he won’t win on November 6.

“If Romney loses seniors, he loses this election, period,” said Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy specialist at the University of North Carolina. “A bad showing nationally (among older voters) does not bode well for Florida and other states with big senior populations.”

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Christie on Romney: If Election Were Tomorrow `That Would Be a Problem’

 

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Republican Mitt Romney has been forced to take a more aggressive tact after blow-back from his “47 percent” comments on a secretly recorded video released last week. Polls show him losing ground to President Barack Obama in some battleground states.

But those “reset” efforts may not be in vain, one of his top campaigners said.

“We had a bad week — if the election were going to be held tomorrow that would be a problem, but there’s a lot of ground to cover in the next 42 days,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who’s been in-demand as a fundraiser and campaign surrogate, told reporters today after breaking ground on an elementary school in Long Branch. “I don’t think we need to overreact on this.”

Christie, 50, turned down entreaties by Republican politicians and some business executives last year to make his own run for the White House. He was also the first sitting governor to line up behind Romney at the time. He said he spoke to Romney by phone yesterday but declined to elaborate on the discussion.

Romney is trying to regain momentum and assure the Republican establishment that the election isn’t turning against him, as he promised to spend more time with voters and less raising cash. Last week proved to be an especially rough one for the former Massachusetts governor, when Mother Jones magazine posted the video from a May 17 fundraiser on its Web site showing Romney  saying 47 percent of Americans are government-dependent “victims.”  He also dismissed hope a peace accord between Israel and Palestinians.

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Obama: Does Romney want ‘to start another war’ in Middle East?

President Barack Obama hit back hard in a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Sunday at Mitt Romney’s criticisms of his handling of Syria and Iran, saying that if the Republican standard-bearer “is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so.”

Obama also brushed aside talk that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressuring him to take a harder line on Iran’s suspicious nuclear program — source of some of Romney’s sharpest campaign-trail criticisms.

“When it comes to our national security decisions– any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out any noise that’s out there,” the president said.

“Now I feel an obligation — not pressure but obligation — to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis– on these issues, because it affects them deeply,” Obama said. “They’re one of our closest allies in the region. And we’ve got an Iranian regime that has said horrible things that directly threaten Israel’s existence.”

Romney has accused Obama of not doing enough to curb Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is a civilian energy program but America and its allies say is an effort to develop the ability to build a nuclear weapon. He has also charged that the president has done too little to help rebels against Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad topple his regime as the civil war there has left perhaps as many as 20,000 dead.

Asked about those criticisms, Obama bristled.

“Let’s see what I’ve done since I came into office: I said I’d end the war in Iraq. I did. I said that we’d go after Al Qaeda. They’ve been decimated in the FATA,” he said, referring to Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, along the remote border with Afghanistan. “That we’d go after bin Laden. He’s gone. So I’ve executed on my foreign policy. And it’s one that the American people largely agree with.”

“So if Governor Romney is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so,” Obama said. That remark echoed suggestions from some of the president’s advisers that Romney relies on so-called “neoconservative” advisers like those who championed the war in Iraq under President George W. Bush.

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