Analysis:

Analysis of White Seniors and the 2008 Election

Election Day was full of historic results for Barack Obama. But his performance among seniors (age 65 and over) provided one of the few lower points, as exit polls show that Obama lost to John McCain among seniors 45 to 53 percent. According to the exit polls, while Obama made gains with nearly all groups compared to John Kerry, this did not happen with seniors. They, along with gay and lesbian voters, were the big underperformers for Obama. Among seniors overall, there was no real change from 2004 to 2008. And among white seniors, Obama lost significant ground, even while he made gains among the white electorate as a whole.

Obama’s struggle among white seniors appears to be more directly tied to his candidacy than to a shift within the white senior electorate. Though Democratic presidential candidates have performed steadily worse with white seniors since 1996, Democrats actually made slight gains with this group in this year’s Congressional vote. After losing them by 12 points in 2004, Democratic congressional candidates narrowed the gap with white seniors to 9 points in 2008, according to National Election Pool exit surveys.

Table 1: Change in presidential and congressional vote among seniors and white seniors[1]
	2004 Pres. Vote	2008 Pres. Vote	2008-2004 Difference	2004 Cong. Vote	2008 Cong. Vote	2008-2004 Difference
TOTAL	48 – 51	53 – 46	+10	49 – 50	54 – 45	+10
Seniors	47 – 52	45 – 53	-3	46 – 52	49 – 48	+7
Non-seniors	48 – 51	54 – 44	+13	49 – 49	54 – 43	+11
White Seniors	44 – 55	40 – 58	-7	43 – 55	44 – 53	+3
White Non-Seniors	40 – 59	44 – 54	+9	41 – 57	45 – 53	+8

The central reason that white seniors did not support Obama is that they feared the type of change he would bring. They remained skeptical about whose side Obama was on, distrusted him generally, and were specifically concerned about his level of experience. These feelings that held white seniors back from Obama were particularly true among white senior men and seniors without a college degree. The same things that drew millions of supporters to Obama — his unusual background, his quick rise to power, and his message of change — were what made white seniors nervous. Clearly Obama won without making gains among this voting bloc, but it is important to understand why white seniors held back from a candidacy such as Obama’s.

This memo examines the 2008 white senior vote by analyzing a database of 1,278 interviews of white seniors conducted by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner in national surveys over the final six weeks of the campaign as well as one post-election survey (September 30^th – November 5^th).

An Historic Perspective of the Senior Electorate

The senior vote has been fairly volatile over the past thirty years. While Republican presidential candidates “swept” the senior vote in the 1980s, in 1992, Bill Clinton dramatically reversed that trend and won seniors by a convincing margin of 50 to 39 percent. That proved to be the high point for Democratic candidates as the margin among seniors steadily declined before flipping back into the Republican column in 2004. Obama’s vote among them was essentially stable from 2004.

Among white seniors, the results were even more disappointing for Obama. Clinton barely won this group in 1996, and, since then, Republican candidates have won it in an increasingly convincing fashion. Obama saw a decline among white seniors, even though this was a change election that brought big positive shifts in most other demographic groups.

Importantly, this drop among white seniors came while Obama made gains among whites as a whole. Obama made solid improvements over Kerry’s performance among whites in 2004 — Obama lost the white vote by 12 points (43 to 55 percent), while Kerry lost this group by 17 points (41 to 58 percent). He did so by making strides among white non-seniors. While Kerry lost that group 40 to 59 percent, Obama picked up a net 9 points among these voters, losing them 44 to 54 percent.

McCain Handily Defeats Obama among White Seniors

In the database of Democracy Corps results from September 30^th to November 5^th, McCain led Obama among white seniors by 9 points, 42 to 51 percent. In post-election polling, both by Democracy Corps and in exit polling, Obama lost by double digits. The undecided white seniors largely broke for McCain; Obama lost 40 to 58 percent among them, according to exit polling.

As no Democratic presidential candidate (save Clinton) has won white seniors in more than a generation, winning them is an unrealistic goal for Democrats. At the same time, there were clearly more white seniors available to Democrats than Obama ended up winning over. While white seniors express more conservative views on gay marriage and immigration than their younger counterparts, they hold fairly similar views to them on other cultural issues like abortion, guns, and the Iraq War. Furthermore, while Obama lost this group by 18 points, congressional Democrats lost them by just 9 points (44 to 53 percent) in 2008.

Table 2: Standing of key groups and issues among white seniors and white non seniors[2]
	White Seniors Warm-Cool	White Non-Seniors Warm-Cool
Gay marriage	17 – 65	29 – 50
Immigration	18 – 53	27 – 42
The N.R.A.	44 – 36	43 – 34
Pro-life groups	40 – 39	39 – 41
The Iraq War	31 – 54	29 – 56

The 2008 White Senior Electorate

On Election Day, Obama failed to make gains among white seniors largely because he underperformed relative to partisanship with white senior independents, white seniors without a college degree, and white senior men (particularly white senior men without a college degree). A closer look at white senior voters in 2008, who comprised 16 percent of the electorate in the Democracy Corps database, reveals some of the demographic challenges for Obama. Compared to white voters aged 18-64, white seniors in 2008 were less educated, more likely to be married, more frequent churchgoers, more rural, slightly less Democratic, and more conservative — all demographics that were troublesome for Obama in the electorate as a whole. One factor keeping Obama from an even bigger loss among white seniors was that they are more heavily female, due to women’s longer life expectancy than men. Fifty-nine percent of white senior voters were women, while only 51 percent of white non-senior voters were women. Obama performed reasonably well among white senior women; his weakness among white seniors was mostly contained to white men.

Table 3: Obama-McCain vote among white seniors[3]
	Presidential Vote (Obama – McCain)	Presidential Vote Difference	Party I.D. Difference (Dem.-Rep.)
TOTAL	42 – 51	- 9	- 4
Democrats	85 – 10	+ 75	-
Independents	36 – 50	- 14	-
Republicans	6 – 90	- 84	-
Men	35 – 56	- 21	- 9
Women	46 – 47	- 1	0
College Voters	48 – 46	+ 2	- 1
Non-College Voters	39 – 54	- 15	- 5

Table 4: Profile of white seniors and white non-seniors[4]
	Percent of White Senior Electorate	Percent of White Non-senior Electorate
Democrat	36	40
Independent	25	26
Republican	39	33
Men	41	49
Women	59	51
Non-college	65	53
College graduate	34	47
Liberal	15	21
Moderate	37	38
Conservative	46	39

Seniors Skeptical about Obama’s Message of Change

Voters as a whole overwhelmingly believed that Barack Obama was more likely than John McCain to bring the right kind of change. However, white voters were mixed on the idea of Obama bringing the right kind of change, and white seniors gave McCain an advantage on this measure. When asked who is better described by “will bring the right kind of change,” white seniors gave McCain a 4-point advantage over Obama (48 to 44 percent). Comparatively, white voters age 18-64 gave Obama a 1-point edge on this measure. Given the incredible resources the Obama campaign spent communicating the message of change, it is remarkable that McCain won this debate with a group that leans Republican but is by no means his base audience.

Numerous focus groups conducted by Democracy Corps over the course of the year made it clear that seniors doubted Obama could deliver on change. Seniors also clearly feared that if he did bring about change, it would be the kind of change they did not like.

The gender and education gaps among seniors on this measure were remarkable:

• By a 13-point margin (40 to 53 percent), white senior men said McCain would be more likely to bring the right kind of change; white senior women gave the advantage to Obama on this measure by 1 point (47 to 46 percent).

• White seniors without a college degree gave McCain a 9-point advantage on the measure (42 to 51 percent); white senior college graduates gave Obama a 5-point edge (50 to 45 percent).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that Obama’s underperformance among white seniors had more to do with the candidate himself than with a partisan shift among this bloc of voters. While Obama’s race likely played a role in this disconnect, it is certainly not the only reason. Unlike among the electorate as a whole, Obama was not able to assuage the fear among white seniors that the change he would bring would be detrimental to their lives. This, more than any one issue or character trait of Obama’s, held white seniors back while their younger white counterparts and minorities swung the election to Obama.

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