The past two decades, senior citizens have swung from left to right, overall:

In 1992, 53% of senior citizens, on average, identified as Democrats or said they were independents but leaned Democratic, while 39% identified as Republicans or leaned Republican, resulting in a 14-percentage-point Democratic advantage in seniors’ party affiliation. Last year, 48% of seniors identified as or leaned Republican, and 45% Democratic, a three-point Republican advantage. The full 1992-2013 party affiliation trends for seniors and younger Americans are shown on page 2.

I think that makes sense – these are people who were trying to get through their prime earning years during the Carter administration, and who get how important an economic recovery can be.

Name report notes that young people are moving more Democrat – which is, I think an artifact of the fact that 20 years ago, during the Reagan administration, “young people” had much more recent examples of the stark contrast between conservative and liberal economic policy. People under the age of 24 today grew up with the better part of a decade of “Bushitler” from their schools and entertainment and, I suspect, have very little memory of even the relative restraint of the Clinton years, much less actual conservatism.

Which is, I suspect, going to be a huge challenge for the GOP. But no worse, I suspect, than the one that had to overcome between 1974 and 1980.

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