Last week, after some very astute aide told Donald Trump he was bleeding support among older voters, he rushed in front of the cameras to cut another one of his South Lawn desperation videos. "I'm a senior!" announced 74-year-old Trump, declaring seniors "my favorite people in the world.”
But ham-handed attempts like that to woo back older voters aren't doing anything to shore up the vital bloc after Trump basically declared granny and grandpa dead to him in his race to reopen the economy over the summer. In fact, that's exactly the message Joe Biden drove home when he visited a senior center in Broward County, Florida, on Tuesday.
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“You’re expendable. You’re forgettable. You’re virtually nobody. That’s how he sees seniors,” Biden said at the community center, wearing a mask the entire time, according to The Washington Post.
“The only senior that Donald Trump cares about — the only senior — is the senior Donald Trump,” Biden added. Truer words have never been spoken.
Biden told the crowd he prayed for Trump's recovery after his positive test for COVID-19 and "hoped at least he’d come out of it somewhat chastened." Instead, Biden said, "He’s just doubled down on the misinformation he did before, and making it worse.”
Biden's message and Trump's remorseless bungling of the pandemic appear to have created real openings in a state that has delivered bitter defeats to Democrats over the past couple decades. Biden also reminded older voters Tuesday that Trump has "pledged to eliminate the tax" that funds Social Security, noting the move would "bankrupt Social Security in just a few years.”
The New York Times reports that a half dozen Biden supporters got wind of the invite-only event and stood outside the Pembroke Pines community center in the blazing sun to catch a glimpse of Biden.
Kathy Sells, 73 and flashing a Biden-Harris hat, button, and mask, said this was the first time she had ever donated to a presidential campaign. “I hate that we are laughed at by the nations of the world," Sells told the Times.
Daisy Hensley, 68, a Democrat, said both she and her husband, a lifelong Republican, are supporting Biden. Since the start of the pandemic, she said they had only been able to see their two grandchildren at a distance. “It breaks our heart,” Hensley said. “All the grandparents — we are suffering.”
Polling aggregates show Biden up about four points over Trump in Florida, 48-52%. NBC News, which has been tracking Biden's edge in five of the last six polls, writes that 65-plus voters "have been fleeing Trump in droves."
While all that news appears to be pretty good for Democratic prospects in the state, Democrats have one more arrow in their quiver: Trump's on the case. Following up on his epic video last week, Trump tweeted this vote-getter Tuesday night following Biden's visit to the state.