The Fix
Published on
December 15, 2009
By Chris Cillizza | The Washington Post
Resurgent Republic, the conservative polling consortium formed in the wake of the 2008 election, is out with a new poll today surveying 1,000 voters aged 55 or older. The numbers should be interesting for political junkies since older voters usually comprise a disproportionately large segment of the electorate in midterms so what they think about the country and the president matters.
On issues, older voters are generally in tune with the electorate as a whole, naming the economy (27 percent), health care (18 percent) ad government debt/national deficit (10 percent) as the three biggest challenges facing the country. Diving deeper into the numbers, older voters are concerned and skeptical about some of President Obama's domestic policy initiatives but are broadly supportive of his recent decision to send more troops into Afghanistan.
Sixty-eight percent of the sample said they were "very concerned" about the growing national debt and seven in ten voters said they preferred "smaller government." On foreign policy, the numbers were reversed with nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of voters over 55 supportive of putting 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan and just 32 percent opposed to that strategy. Given that data, you can expect Republicans running in 2010 to focus their criticism of the Obama administration heavily on the fiscal side while expressing support for his pursuit of the war in Afghanistan.
Resurgent Republic's number one suggestion for GOP messaging targeted at older voters heading into 2010? "More federal spending may be the agenda of the Democratic-controlled Congress, but it does not address your priority of cutting spending and lowering the deficit."