While Democrats have worried about Joe Biden’s struggles to excite younger voters, older voters who are upset with the president are poised to be potentially more influential in November, especially in swing states whose populations skew their way, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Allen Lehner was a Republican until Donald Trump became his party’s nominee in 2016.
The 74-year-old Florida retiree says he couldn’t bring himself to vote for someone who lied, belittled others, walked out on his bills and mistreated women — but he also couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary Clinton.
So he didn’t vote.
Trump has done nothing since to entice Lehner back.
Lehner, who now considers himself an independent, says he is frightened by the president’s lack of leadership and maturity amid the nation’s health and economic crisis.
He’s not alone.
Doris Heath was a lifelong Republican too, an officer in the local GOP Women’s Club, who received a “Republican of the Year” award by former Sen. Jon Kyl in the 1990’s.
The 84-year old Arizona resident told family members during the primary fight that if Trump, who she regards as vulgar and a charlatan, received the nomination she’d leave the GOP.
Trump won and she immediately re-registered as an independent.
Both plan to vote for Joe Biden in November.
“Regardless of what they say about his senior moments, I think he would be good and take good care of the country,” said Lehner, who owned furniture and fireplace-supply stores in central Pennsylvania before retiring to Florida.
In Florida, more than 20 percent of those who voted in the 2016 election were over age 65, according to exit polls. In 2016, Trump won the Florida senior vote by a 17-point margin over Clinton, according to exit polls.
The state ranks as one Trump must almost certainly win to insure his victory, while Biden has other paths to the White House.
Trump’s campaign had also hoped to take Arizona for granted, not spending resources there, but all internal GOP polls have shown Biden leading.
“He doesn’t inspire the nation, he belittles it,” said Heath. “Look what he said about John McCain, one of our true American heroes. Joe Biden will restore dignity to the office, and that’s what I’m most concerned about when I look at my great grandchildren and their future.”
Arizona voted for Trump in 2016 by just three points over Hillary Clinton, and it’s now Biden’s top state to flip this November.
Biden’s lead in polling mostly mirrors that of Democrat Mark Kelly, who is looking to unseat Arizona Republican Senator Martha McSally.
“To win in November, we are building upon our 2018 infrastructure and momentum that elected Democrats up and down the ballot,” said Felecia Rotellini, Arizona’s Democratic Party Chair.
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won a senate seat in 2018 by more than 60,000 votes in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, where Republicans outnumber Democrats and Trump bested Clinton in 2016 by more than 40,000 votes.
She did well in the huge senior communities, where the Biden campaign believes Arizona’s 11 electoral votes will be decided.
In addition to several virtual community events, a Biden spokesperson said the campaign is already collaborating with Democrats in Arizona on communications, data, and technology work.
For months, Biden has been more popular than Trump with seniors.
A national poll of registered voters released by Quinnipiac University last week shows Biden leading by 10 points among voters over 65.
A Quinnipiac poll in late April found 52 percent of Florida seniors supporting Biden to 42 percent for Trump, while a Fox News poll around the same time found Biden narrowly ahead.
“We have the ability to sway this election,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo declared as she opened an online town hall with fellow seniors earlier this month, which included a tutorial on voting by mail. “Trump has failed us and it is now our turn.”
The skepticism toward the president among some seniors comes as their lives have been drastically altered by the coronavirus, which has swept through nursing homes and retirement communities across the country.
In Florida, more than 80 percent of the 2,000-plus people killed by the virus have been over age 65, according to an analysis by the Tampa Bay Times.
Even as the state has begun to reopen, most seniors have remained hidden in their homes at the urging of their doctors or their adult children and grandchildren.
Most no longer gather with others to dine, play cards, enjoy golf or the pool, or discuss politics.
Consternation runs deep among some of those loyal to the president.
Dave Israel, an 80-year-old Republican who lives in the Century Village retirement community in West Palm Beach, is frustrated that the state didn’t bring coronavirus testing directly into the community of 7,000 and has not done enough contact tracing following confirmed cases.
He and other residents hired a private testing company, which has done 1,100 so far and found just four cases.
“We are clearly highly susceptible,” Israel said. “We’re missing testing, and we’re missing contact tracing. We need to see that.”
He said Trump is more concerned about the economic crisis than the health one — which he understands, given the president’s background in business.
Although Trump is “a little brusque, a little abrupt,” Israel said, he thinks Trump has accomplished a lot.
“If it’s Trump versus Biden, I would still support him — but the point about testing: Everybody should be tested,” he said. “I don’t see how else we’re going to get on top of this.”
Whether the shift seen in polling since Trump’s election continues through Election Day is as unpredictable as the course of the virus — and may depend on it.
Biden, 77, and Trump, 73, are themselves seniors — born during and just after World War II to parents who had weathered the Great Depression.
They came of age during the civil rights movement, and witnessed the first man walking on the moon, the creation of Medicare, the women’s liberation movement, the terrorist attacks on 9/11, rounds of foreign wars and natural disasters, a recession and the invention of the Internet, cellphones and Twitter.
Their leadership styles provide voters with a stark choice.
Biden has taken on the cautions of his generation in recent months, quarantining in his Delaware home after those in his age group were asked to curb their activities to lessen their chances of being infected.
Trump has flouted recommendations about social distancing and the use of masks, and has openly yearned for the mass rallies that once defined his political campaign.
“I’ve seen a lot. I was in the Vietnam War. I had my own business,” said Lehner, who lived in Pennsylvania when the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant there partially melted down in 1979. “It was just panic, but we had, in a sense, we had leadership in that event. And, in fact, in a lot of events. Presidents have in the past given leadership or comfort. But there is nothing coming from our current president.”