Old and In the GOP

Jonathan Chait comments on the success of the GOP in gaining support among the over-65 crowd.

Daniel Larison flags a Pew Survey showing that the Republican party's recent gains have come overwhelmingly among the elderly. Specifically, since 2006, Baby boomers, Generation X and Millenials have all moved 5-6 percentage points away from the Democratic Party and toward the GOP when asked which party in Congress they intend to vote for. (Though all those groups still, on the aggregate, plan to vote Democratic over Republican.) The oldest cohort, the "Silent Generation," has shown a staggering 17 point shift toward the GOP.

This seems to suggest that Republicans have successfully stoked fears of fears of "redistribution of health" -- cutting expenditures on Medicare and shifting resources toward the uninsured. (Lamar Alexander: "[D]on't cut grandma's Medicare and spend it on some new program. If you can find some savings in the waste, fraud, and abuse of grandma's Medicare, spend it on grandma.") It also explains why President Obama's health care proposal now completely fills in the Medicare "doughnut hole." The Democrats need most of all some deliverable to show to the elderly.

I would go one step further and suggest that Democrats can reverse this trend by highlighting Republican budget proposals that are based on privatizing Social Security and Medicare, hardly a pro-oldster policy.