Older Voters Remain Fearful of America’s Political Divide

Issues such as health care, retirement security and prescription drug prices will be uppermost in the minds of older voters as they go to the polls on Nov. 6. But this midterm election season has brought out another overriding concern among the age 50-plus electorate: how divided America and Americans have become.

“I would say in my lifetime, it seems worse than ever,” said Brenda, a 57-year-old project coordinator from the Pittsburgh area, at a recent AARP/Politico focus group that brought together 50-plus voters. “Nothing can be done if nobody compromises, and now that’s the line: No compromise.”

An AARP national survey this summer of voters over 50 found that 73 percent often worry about how divided the country has become. And in 20 polls AARP conducted this fall in states and individual congressional districts, about half of all those surveyed cited political divisiveness as a top concern.

“That stood out in all our polls — the sense among older voters that their greatest fear is the division in the country right now,” says John Hishta, AARP senior vice president for campaigns. “Nobody has figured out a way to deal with that because both sides go to the lowest common denominator in debates.”

As campaigns come down to the wire and races across the country are polling increasingly close, older voters are likely to decide which party controls Congress, governorships and statehouses. “People over the age of 50 have decided these elections historically, and they probably will do so again,’’ Hishta says. “The oversized importance of that part of the electorate is something that we want to continue to bring attention to.’’

For nearly four decades, the turnout of voters older than 45 has been significantly higher than that of younger Americans. In the last midterm election, in 2014, citizens over 60 accounted for 39.4 percent of all voters — the largest single voting bloc. And adults between 45 and 59 were the second largest group, accounting for 30.3 percent. This year, all 435 seats in the U. S. House of Representatives, 35 U.S. Senate seats and 36 governorships are up for election, along with thousands of seats in state legislatures.