Reuters/Ipsos Poll: Romney Support Crumbles With Older Voters

By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2012
Posted on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:14:00 AM EST
Tags: Mitt Romney (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

Via Reuters:

New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points.

Paul Ryan got booed at an AARP convention in New Orleans last week. Analysts say if Romney doesn't win seniors, he can't win the election.

He's not doing well with middle-aged voters either: [More...]

A Pew poll, conducted September 12-16 and released last week, showed Romney with only a 47 to 46 percent lead among registered voters aged 65-plus. He also trailed Obama by 7 points among people aged 45 to 64 - a huge potential voting bloc that analysts say is increasingly concerned about retirement security.

Just tonight at a town hall in Iowa, Romney said he would change Social Security and Medicare for those in their 20s, 30s, 40s and early 50s:

Romney had already responded to “Betty from Marshalltown,” who said she was in a nursing home, that he would not change Social Security for her, but he would implement changes for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and early 50s. “And we’ll make changes in the program for them but for people like you who have retired, or are near retirement, there will be no changes in Social Security or in Medicare.”

On a related note: On You Tube: At a Safeway in Colorado Springs this weekend, a woman who says she is working for the County Clerk's Office tells a prospective voter she only wants to register Romney voters.

El Paso Clerk & Recorder Wayne Williams denies the woman works for the his office , and it turns out, she's a paid employee of the Romney campaign.

El Paso County Republican Chairman Eli Bremer says of the girl's confusion, "It was her first day on the job and she panicked. She knew that she was turning in all the registrations to the County Clerk & Recorder's office and she knew that was the appropriate thing to do, and that's how she answered."

< NZ Prime Minister Orders Inquiry Into Illegal Interceptions of Kim Dotcom | Monday Morning Open Thread >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

Reuters/Ipsos Poll: Romney Support Crumbles With Older Voters | 19 comments (19 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

A friend of mine that registers voters here (5.00 / 4) (#1)
by ruffian on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 07:16:29 AM EST

in central FL heard another volunteer say the same thing- that she was only going to register Republicans. I have no doubt it is how GOP volunteers are being instructed on some level.

Regarding the older voters, I don't understand the Romney Ryan strategy at all when they are trying to woo older voters by telling them that they won't be affected, but people just a little younger than now will. As if people have no concern for anybody else but themselves. I guess that's the Republican way but it is not the way to win over conscientious older voters.

: And as if you can just take them at their word (5.00 / 4) (#4)
by Militarytracy on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:17:00 AM EST

That they are only going to eff everyone else, just not you. It reminds me of that one person who always corners you to talk $hit about everyone else. By the time we get to the nursing home we have figured out that we were never special to that person nor were we excluded in the practice of their hobby.

: Appealing to selfishness (5.00 / 4) (#10)
by sj on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:57:40 AM EST

works for themselves so I guess they think it will work for everybody. Regrettably, it will work with some. Then the 20- and 30-somethings will grow to maturity expecting to not have a safety net. But that's okay, because if the Republicans have their way, by the time they reach their maturity Debtor's prison will have made a comeback.
It is soul-sucking and should be so, so easy for a Democrat to respond to. All we need is a Democrat who believes in the safety net and we're set.

Don't forget folks... (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by fishcamp on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 07:17:26 AM EST

Jeralyn's birthday is in four days on Sept. 28th.

He's not doing well with middle aged :) (5.00 / 5) (#3)
by Militarytracy on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:12:39 AM EST

Things aren't looking well for many of us, and he runs around talking about how he's gutting Social Security and Medicare for us. We have all worked very hard for this country, and he is of the ilk that blew us up and drained all of our real wealth into their bank accounts and now he's insulting me and telling me to get off my a$$.

Does he want 90 hour work weeks, so that productivity can increase a bit more and he can raid the pension funds of some different companies? I mean he is going to have to keep his day job because he isn't going to be President of THIS country. He is a sickening person

Remarks Show How Out of Touch Romney Is (5.00 / 3) (#12)
by john horse on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 11:41:15 AM EST

I'm not surprised that support for Romney is dropping among older voters. Unlike Romney, people who draw Social Security don't feel that they are "victims...dependent on government (and)...entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." Thats because Social Security is an earned benefit. And why should they support him when he says "(my) job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Sometimes you get to see past the carefully crafted image and see the person behind the curtain. I think Romney just told on himself.

The term, "entitlements," (5.00 / 3) (#13)
by NYShooter on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 12:15:06 PM EST

illustrates the point that a certain Propaganda Minister from the mid-20th century made famous: If you tell a big lie loud enough and often enough, eventually most people will believe it to be true.

Just yesterday, while flipping the channels on TV, I caught a segment of the McLaughlin Group. The topic was the Deficit and, of course the villains were: Entitlements, i.e. S.S. & Medicare.

Not one person, least of all the so-called "liberals," stepped up to protest that classification.


: I want 'em to say... (5.00 / 2) (#18)
by unitron on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 07:42:03 PM EST

...d****d right they're entitlements, these people worked hard all their lives and paid into the system, and now, by G*d, they are entitled to it!
Which is different from freebies, bribes, and giveaways.

Yes, in sum, Romney said da bums (5.00 / 5) (#16)
by Towanda on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 01:43:38 PM EST

are living on their investments.

Just like him.

Social Security originally was called -- as we must reiterate, again and again -- old-age insurance.

Just like a 65-life policy, in life insurance industry terminology. Pay into it for decades and decades and decades to reap the result at age 65 . . . the result of your investment.

An Investment. Not an Entitlement.


Guardian: 'Mitt Romney is too rational (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by Mr Natural on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 12:21:23 PM EST

for a deluded Republican base'

The party he tried to save is dead; the party he represents now deluded. When he speaks candidly within it, he exposes its contempt for the poor in particular and the electorate's intelligence in general. When he speaks carefully outside of it, he exposes its contradictions: driven by the fringe but appealing to the mainstream. This is not a problem of Romney's making; it's the problem that made Romney's candidacy possible.

Ha ha ha ha (none / 0) (#5)
by Militarytracy on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:19:56 AM EST

Paul Ryan doesn't have asthma, he occassionally uses an enhaler for airway hypersensitivity according to his doctor. I wonder if his doctor also runs sub 3 marathons. What a colorful physician.

He does hyperventilate (5.00 / 5) (#6)
by ruffian on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:23:02 AM EST

when he gets excited about cutting Social Security and Medicare. Breathe Paul, breathe!


I spelled inhaler wrong too :) (none / 0) (#7)
by Militarytracy on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:27:00 AM EST

But when I use one, it is because I have asthma. I was first diagnosed when I was 12. And then when they fixed the inversion pollution problem in Colorado Springs my symptoms disappeared for a very long time, asthma is asthma though. And you can be extremely physically fit and you still have asthma.


I knew what you meant! (none / 0) (#8)
by ruffian on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:32:19 AM EST

The Denver dust and particulate problem can be tough too. I remember reading when I lived there that a good portion of the air pollution in Denver in the winters is caused by the sand they put on the roads. Great.


I didn't know that (none / 0) (#9)
by Militarytracy on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 09:44:08 AM EST

I have seen the smog so bad in the winter in Colorado Springs during inversion, that when the street lights shone at night on it it looked like fog. It wasn't fog though, it was smog, and then came ethanol.

My first asthma doctor here was very Christian and Conservative and was born and raised in the South. When we were discussing my history he was shocked that ethanol improved air quaility when dealing with inversions. He told me that he thought it made it worse. OMG you are an asthma doctor dude.

I think he was raised with The Waterboy Adam Sandler and his mom Kathy Bates told him every day that ethanol is the debil!


: It is the debil... (none / 0) (#17)
by unitron on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 07:36:25 PM EST

... the fuel line destroying, carburetor clogging, corn syrup debil!
(It's almost as evil as HDMI and HDCP)
Wish there was another way to be good to the air without being so bad to power equipment.

very true and in Aspen (none / 0) (#15)
by fishcamp on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 01:39:49 PM EST

for years they were crushing the old mine tailings into sand to spread on the icy streets. Those mine tailings from the silver mines have high concentrations of radon and cadmium which render them radioactive so asthma people got a little extra kicker with each breath. Many Aspen people have COPD. The city and county have since stopped that practice.


In Ryan's case, it ain't the pollution from ... (5.00 / 2) (#11)
by Mr Natural on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 10:31:11 AM EST

the outside that's the problem. It's pollution from the inside that causes his body's own biochemistry to recoil in revulsion.


Site violator? (none / 0) (#20)
by Zorba on Fri Sep 28, 2012 at 07:13:41 PM EST

Hard to tell, but it seems so. And if so, an inept spammer.