Senior power is the sleeping giant of American politics. …
Older Americans’ collective voting clout has usually been fragmented by more salient variables of race, religion, ideology-party, class, gender or family status. But that is changing: Age and race have begun to coalesce in a manner that should alarm Democrats.
Since well before Donald Trump’s candidacy, significant majorities of 50-plus whites have favored Republican presidential candidates. They have been a major reason for that party’s control of a substantial majority of statehouses and governors’ mansions, and because they constitute a significant percentage of the voters in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, they pose a roadblock on a Democratic presidential candidate’s route to the Electoral College. CONT.
Frederick R. Lynch (Claremont McKenna), New York Times