'Integrity and morality' key factor as Trump bleeds support among key GOP demographic

Seniors, historically, have been a crucial demographic for the Republican Party, and GOP strategists and organizers often go into damage-control mode whenever there is reporting on Republican plans to cut Social Security or Medicare.

According to Newsweek's Kate Plummer, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump appears to be losing support among older voters.

A Marist poll on Pennsylvania — a crucial battleground state that Trump and President Joe Biden are fighting over intensely — finds a close race among the state's seniors. According to the poll, released on June 12, Trump leads Biden by only 3 percent with the Keystone State's older voters.

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Plummer points out, however, that polls on Pennsylvania and the presidential race have varied.

"A January Quinnipiac University poll of around 1600 voters in Pennsylvania also suggested the former president is trailing behind his Democratic rival among older voters," Plummer notes. "While 60 percent of voters aged 65 and over said they would vote for Biden, 37 percent said they would vote for Trump. However, according to another survey conducted this week by Yahoo News and YouGov, 41 percent of respondents ages over 65 said they'd vote for Biden and 52 percent said they'd choose Trump."

Plummer adds, "Meanwhile, when voters of all ages were polled, the Marist survey found that 47 percent intend to vote for Trump in November's presidential election, while 45 percent intend to vote for Biden."

William F. Hall, a political science professor at Webster University in St. Louis, offered some reasons why some older voters may be favoring Biden over Trump.

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Hall told Newsweek, "I would interpret this shift in support among older voters, between 2020 and 2024, to be motivated primarily due to a growing sense of disillusionment and disagreement by older voters with the handling of both his political and personal affairs on the part of former President Trump, especially including his persistence in claiming the 2020 election was stolen as well as his indictments and now, convictions over multiple criminal cases."

Hall added, "I believe that these two issues, unlike perhaps in the past, especially as the election date becomes nearer, are now beginning to weigh negatively much more heavily, particularly on the minds of older voters."

Mark Shanahan of the University of Surrey in the U.K. believes that Trump's legal problems may be hurting him with older voters.

Shanahan told Newsweek, "Older people, as a whole, care more about crime and whether a candidate acts reputably with integrity and morality. It would seem that there is cut-through with them on Trump, both with regards to his ongoing refusal to accept the 2020 presidential election result, and his 34 recent felony convictions in the New York court."

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Read Newsweek's full report at this link.