delray beach, fla.<u+2014> ruth mary baudhuin watched lawrence welk as a young girl, listened to fellow philadelphian chubby checker on the radio and eventually grew into her parents<u+2019> republicanism, an irish-catholic conservatism that idealized the nuclear family. but the 68-year-old retiree, like many older voters, no longer recognizes her party. the soft-edged promise she recalls of previous nominees<u+2014>ronald reagan<u+2019>s sunny disposition, john mccain <u+2019>s undisputed patriotism<u+2014>have been replaced with what she views as insults and bombast. so she<u+2019>s backing democratic nominee hillary clinton, ending her streak of supporting every republican presidential nominee since gerald ford. <u+201c>the main thing is i really don<u+2019>t like the person,<u+201d> said mrs. baudhuin, now a florida voter, barely able to speak gop nominee donald trump <u+2019>s name and relying instead on pronouns. <u+201c>his attitudes, all the negative things he puts out, i really don<u+2019>t want a racist to be president,<u+201d> she said. mrs. baudhuin<u+2019>s change of heart isn<u+2019>t an anomaly when it comes to america<u+2019>s oldest<u+2014>and most reliable<u+2014>voters.<u+00a0>among voters 65 and older, the most recent round of major media polls show mr. trump running between 11 and 18 percentage points behind 2012 gop nominee mitt romney at this same point four years ago. mr. romney went on to win the older vote by 12 percentage points<u+2014>the largest margin for any presidential candidate in 28 years<u+2014>and still lost to president barack obama. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s disconcerting, because seniors have been the core of our base in recent years,<u+201d> republican pollster ed goeas said, adding that private polling shows similar trends. mrs. clinton has her own demographic dilemma, as her campaign works feverishly to energize the nation<u+2019>s youngest<u+00a0>voters, who overwhelmingly backed mr. obama four years ago and now are considering support for third-party candidates. yet the biggest partisan shift this year may be america<u+2019>s older citizens, who are choosing between a pair of candidates from their own peer group for the first time in 168 years. mr. trump is 70 years old, mrs. clinton is 68. the last time the top two presidential candidates were at least 60 years old was in 1848, when there were three: that year 64-year-old whig nominee zachary taylor defeated the 66-year-old democrat, lewis cass, and 65-year-old free soil candidate, martin van buren. <u+2018> it<u+2019>s disconcerting, because seniors have been the core of our base in recent years. <u+2019> more recently, voters who are 65 and older have been trending republican. no democratic presidential candidate has won older voters since al gore in 2000, exit polls show. and for the past five election cycles, every republican nominee has won a larger share of this bloc than his predecessor. now, mrs. clinton appears to be luring them back to her party<u+2019>s fold.<u+00a0>she was winning among older voters, 44% to 42%, among registered voters in the latest wall street journal poll. she was also ahead in this age group, 52% to 44%, in a washington post/abc poll published sept. 20. mr. trump had a three percentage point advantage among older voters in the new york times/cbs poll on sept. 11, but that lagged well behind mr. romney<u+2019>s lead of 15 percentage points in the same poll at this point in the race four years ago. in florida, the nation<u+2019>s largest presidential battleground, one of every five residents is a senior citizen, the highest ratio in the country. a mason-dixon poll last week showed mr. trump ahead of mrs. clinton by six percentage points among voters 65 and older. mr. romney won them by 17 percentage points four years ago, and lost the state. in the villages, a florida retirement community of about 110,000 people, there are more than 2,500 clubs, including a new one: republicans for hillary. it drew about three dozen members to its first meeting in september, said linda fogg, the 61-year-old organizer. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t plan to leave the party, and will vote for republicans down the ticket, but a man who mocks the disabled will never get my vote,<u+201d> said mrs. fogg, a former docent at the george w. bush presidential library and museum. most older voters view mr. trump as more honest and better to deal with the economy than mrs. clinton. but his margins among this age group are much tighter, according to the journal poll. older voters also overwhelmingly view mrs. clinton as having the better temperament, more suited to be in charge of nuclear weapons and more knowledgeable to handle the presidency. <u+201c>i know there<u+2019>s a lot of questions about him,<u+201d> said pat boone, the 82-year-old singer who is advising the trump campaign on issues for the elderly. <u+201c>he shoots from the lip, and i regret that. i<u+2019>ve told him i wish he wouldn<u+2019>t call people names and that he needs to develop a more presidential demeanor. but there are no perfect people, even among the saints.<u+201d> mr. boone, who rivaled elvis presley<u+2019>s popularity in the 1950s, will serve as a national co-chair, along with former u.s. rep. sue myrick (r., n.c.), on a senior advisory committee the trump campaign will unveil soon, according to a campaign aide who requested anonymity to speak about plans. mr. trump<u+2019>s team is also planning state-level advisory boards and has scheduled a <u+201c>senior day door knocking,<u+201d> tele-town halls and phone banks aimed at older voters in october. mr. boone said he hopes to record a robocall that more than one million older voters will hear. these efforts will remind older voters that mr. trump supports eliminating the death tax, which mrs. clinton opposes, and that he broke from leaders in his own party by vowing to protect social security and medicare, as has mrs. clinton. mrs. myrick, who is 75, said fewer older voters may be backing the republican candidate this year because of the attack ads from mrs. clinton<u+2019>s campaign and her supporters. <u+201c>he<u+2019>s made some mistakes, there<u+2019>s no way around that, but seniors need to be reassured that he<u+2019>s not going to change the social security system, even though they may be told otherwise in ads,<u+201d> mrs. myrick said. <u+201c>there<u+2019>s a real challenge there in reaching out and making sure older voters understand he<u+2019>s not the monster she<u+2019>s trying to make him out to be.<u+201d> mr. trump is aware of the power of the elderly vote. once a supporter of privatization and increasing the age to receive benefits, he now opposes both because he views these positions as political deal breakers. at a republican primary debate in miami in march, mr. trump explained his reversal by pointing out that democrats, including mrs. clinton, now favor expanding social security benefits. <u+201c>whether we like it or not, that is what we<u+2019>re up against,<u+201d> he said. while mr. trump has a proven preternatural political instinct for appealing to america<u+2019>s most miserable voters, he has largely ceded most of the policy space to mrs. clinton. consider the election preview issue of aarp<u+2019>s newsletter, which claims more than 47 million readers. mrs. clinton, a former secretary of state, sat for an interview and submitted written answers to 13 questions. mr. trump declined the group<u+2019>s interview and answered just six of its questions. robert love, the editor of newsletter, said he combed through speeches and previous statements to puzzle together answers to the other seven questions. to appeal to older voters, mrs. clinton has proposed expanding social security benefits and maintaining medicare. she has called for a tax credit worth $1,200 a year toward caregiving costs for elderly family members, and has also called for $2 billion a year in research to find a cure for alzheimer<u+2019>s disease by 2025. that research project would be underwritten partly through a tax on wealthier americans. mrs. baudhuin mentions mrs. clinton<u+2019>s alzheimer<u+2019>s policy<u+2014>her mother-in-law suffers from the disease<u+2014>and said the former first lady<u+2019>s convention speech was impressive. that admiration for the democratic candidate and her anxiety about mr. trump<u+2019>s behavior motivated her to spend part of a recent<u+00a0>saturday<u+00a0>afternoon at a florida democratic party office in delray beach, where an overflow crowd of elderly citizens crowded around tables and sat on hallway floors making phone calls on behalf of their candidate. she also nearly dropped her republican party affiliation. <u+201c>but i thought i<u+2019>d make more of a stand doing it this way,<u+201d> she said. corrections & amplifications: zachary taylor was elected president in 1848. an earlier version of this article misstated the year. (oct. 2, 2016) write to michael c.<u+00a0>bender at mike.bender@wsj.com
among seniors, clinton grows more appealing    - wsj
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