AARP Polls Boomers On Election And Social Security

I mentioned earlier today that drug prices will matter with seniors (the doughnut/donut hole comes due). Well, AARP released a poll today (.pdf) confirming this

Issue of the Week: The Cost of Prescription Drugs

Almost 65 percent of baby boomers and older Americans, ages 42 and older, consider paying for prescription drugs to be either a major (43%) or a minor (21%) financial problem.
The cost of prescription drugs is likely to be a voting issue in the November 2006 elections for nearly three-quarters of this age group, especially for minorities, the less educated and those with lower incomes.

and showing that boomers do not support private accounts.

AARP found that there is great resistance among likely boomer plus voters to use Social Security tax dollars in order to fund private accounts. Seven in 10 respondents oppose private accounts (71 percent). In fact, there is a great deal of intensity of opposition to private accounts. Those who oppose private accounts were more than four times as likely to strongly oppose private accounts (57 percent) as to somewhat oppose them (14 percent), while respondents who support private accounts were almost evenly divided between strongly support (9 percent) and somewhat support (8 percent).

If you're still not clear, see this from the press release:

Nearly two-thirds of likely voters (64 percent) said they are either not at all likely (38 percent) or not very likely (26 percent) to vote for a candidate who supports using the Social Security taxes to fund private accounts. Older respondents in particular report they are not at all likely to vote for a candidate who supports private accounts (43 percent ages 61 plus; 34 percent ages 42-50 and 35 percent ages 51-60).

Unfortunately, not all voters feel well enough informed. "Half of the voters we talked to believe the candidates have not been clear enough on where they stand on the issue of private accounts," noted Sloane. "We're urging people to find out where their candidates stand on the important issues."

But some other numbers of interest show that this group of voters are in play:

As of September, however, with less than two months before the election, only 38 percent say they have given quite a lot of thought to the upcoming election. Once more, more Americans over 60 say they have given this much thought to the upcoming election. Interestingly, solid majorities say they have not yet decided how they will vote for candidates in their House of Representatives race (70%) or their U.S. Senate race (60%).

Americans are evenly divided between basing their vote for congressional candidates on "bringing home the bacon" to their congressional district (43%) and agreement with the candidate's position on major national issues (45%).

On the other hand, slightly more say they base their vote on the candidate's position on one or two key issues (44%) rather than the personal qualities of the candidate (37%).

When polls push people to decide and they really haven't decided, you get funky numbers. That's one reason why polls in October mean more than polls pre-Labor Day, and why there's a natural "tightning" that doesn't always mean a surge for the trailing candidate. Clearly, though, Social Security and drug prices make a difference in the 42+ voting group. I can't help but think that those issues should favor Democrats.