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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Generation Gap
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Apr 25, 2008 09:20am |
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| Category | General |
| Media | Magazine - Newsweek |
| News Date | Thursday, April 24, 2008 03:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Obama is trailing with older voters. Can he win them over?
Apr 24, 2008 | Updated: 10:35 a.m. ET Apr 24, 2008
It was the "Grandma Primary." Barack Obama lost Pennsylvania mostly because white working-class women over 60 dominated the contest to an astonishing degree, and they backed Hillary Clinton by more than 2-1. The big question is what that means for November.
Obama carried men and younger and middle-aged voters, but that wasn't nearly enough.
Women made up an amazing 58 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania, a huge edge for Clinton right there and for any Democrat in the fall (the gender gap ain't going away). Whites comprised 80 percent of the electorate. Three quarters of voters earned under $100,000. More than half had no college degree, with that number moving much higher among seniors. Most important, 40 percent of the voters in Pennsylvania were over 60, which is not surprising considering that Pennsylvania trails only Florida as the oldest state in the union.
Obama gets this. "If you look at the numbers, our problem has less to do with white working-class voters [than] with older voters." he told reporters Wednesday. "They are very loyal to Senator Clinton. And I think part of that is they've got a track record of voting for not just Senator Clinton but also her husband."
Obama did better among seniors in Pennsylvania, where he lost 59-41 percent, than in Ohio, where Hillary crushed him by 41 points in that age cohort. That 69-28 drubbing tells us almost everything we need to know about why Hillary won Ohio by 10 points on March 4. |
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