Bernie Needs More Support From His Contemporaries-- His Campaign Is Working On It

Adrian Pantoja is a Professor of Politics at Pitzer College and a senior analyst for Latino Decisions. Over the weekend, they released some new polling of Latino voters in California, who overwhelmingly favor Bernie for president. Pantoja wrote that "one of the primary ways to win the hearts and minds of young Latinos is by campaigning on issues that matter most to them." Bernie seems to have accomplished that.

This table lists the top ten policy issues for young Latinos in California. Pantoja pointed out that the ten top issues are important for all respondents, regardless of age but, what is distinct among young Latino voters is that the ranking of these issues differs. "For example, access to affordable housing is the most pressing issue for young Latino voters, while lowering health care costs is the most pressing issue for older Latino voters. Protecting immigrant rights ranks second among younger Latinos, while this issue ranks fourth among older Latinos. The relative importance of immigration issues may be due to the fact that 52 percent of young Latinos say they have a family member or close friend who is undocumented, while only 24 percent of Latinos 50 years and older know someone in that situation. The policy issues of young Latino voters relative to older Latino voters are more alike than different." Bernie's task now is to win over more older voters, not just Latino seniors but seniors across the board.

Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporter Eliza Collins took up the issue of Bernie's outreach to seniors. In Iowa, he was asking his most enthusiastic young followers to help him persuade their parents. "His campaign," she wrote "is coaching thousands of young supporters on how to talk to their parents and grandparents during the holidays.

“It’s up to us as students and young people to make the moral appeal to our older relatives to join us in voting for Bernie, because let’s face it: they won’t be around for as long to deal with the consequences of this election, but we will be,” reads a document titled “Students for Bernie: Family Persuasion Guide” that was sent out to nearly 3,000 students ahead of Thanksgiving. The campaign plans to do another push before the holidays later this month.

Aides to Mr. Sanders, 78 years old, say he can win the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 if he is able to turn out a diverse coalition of young and working-class people who don’t typically vote in the primaries.

But in recent months, these aides have also acknowledged that he needs to do better with older voters, a section of the electorate that has been more likely to go to the polls than their younger counterparts have been.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed Mr. Sanders with 52% of support among Democratic primary voters under age 35, but just 2% with those over 65. By contrast, former Vice President Joe Biden won the backing of 47% of voters over 65 in that poll. Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling shows a similar trend.

Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in an interview that the campaign has made more of an effort to focus on seniors in the past three months and hopes to peel off some voters who have been supporting other candidates.

Urging young supporters to talk to older relatives about Mr. Sanders is an unconventional strategy. The campaign is also taking some more traditional steps.

A six-figure digital ad buy in Iowa includes one spot targeting senior voters [up top]. The ad features Mr. Sanders speaking at a town hall in Des Moines about expanding Social Security benefits and capping the cost of prescription-drug prices.

Aides to Mr. Sanders also say the $8 million they have put into TV advertisements in the states that have early primaries will help them reach seniors because they are placing the ads during shows that are popular with older audiences.

Mr. Sanders’s campaign is airing most spots during the local news and network morning shows, according to data from political-ad tracker Kantar/CMAG. It is also buying time during the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, daytime talk programs The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Dr. Phil and the game show Family Feud.

According to the Sanders campaign, 20% of the events he hosted in November were senior-focused. On the campaign trail, Mr. Sanders often says that Medicare for All, a signature policy, would cover home health care, hearing aids and eyeglasses. He rails against pharmaceutical companies ratcheting up the cost of prescription drugs.

Winning older voters could be particularly key in Iowa and New Hampshire, states with older populations and the first two to vote in the nominating contest. Sixty-four percent of Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa in 2016 were over age 45. Fifty-nine percent of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters were in that age group, according to entrance and exit polling.

Mr. Sanders has been visiting both states to try to shore up his support, and he has won over some senior voters.

Judy Plank, a 76-year-old retiree from Le Mars, Iowa, said she liked Mr. Sanders because his age meant he had a wealth of political experience and because she has long supported the same issues he has.

“We’re contemporaries, he’s a year older but we won’t let that bother any of us,” she said at a rally in November. She thought her peers who didn’t like him were just scared of new ideas, “and then they’re mad at him because they’re scared,” she said.

Many candidates-- though not the conservative ones, like Sttaus Quo Joe, Mayo Pete and Bloomberg-- have embraced Bernie's proposal for expanding Social Security, The Right To A Secure Retirement. There are 4 key components to his plan:

• Expand Social Security benefits for all recipients and protect pensions.
• Guarantee home and community based long-term care services.
• Protect our most vulnerable seniors by quadrupling funding for the Older Americans Act and expanding other programs seniors rely on.
• Expand and train the direct care workforce we need.

Slashing drug prices is another piece of this that has widespread appeal to seniors, especially since Trump's bullshit promises in 2016 have amounted to nothing at all. In fact, the cost of medicine has increased. Bernie wrote that "In the United States, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. This year alone the price of major prescription drugs have increased more than five times the rate of inflation with price hikes as high as 875 percent. While about one out of five Americans cannot afford to pay for the medicine prescribed by their doctors,10 big drug companies made $69 billion in profits last year and the top 25 CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry received $440 million in compensation in 2017. Seniors take an average of 4.5 drugs every month. For a senior taking brand name medications, the yearly price of those medications was more than $30,000 in 2017, more than most seniors’ annual income. Nearly a quarter of seniors with prescriptions have a hard time affording their medicine. Under Medicare for All, we will stop the pharmaceutical industry from ripping off seniors by making sure that no one in America pays over $200 a year for the medicine they need by capping what Americans pay for prescription drugs. This is exactly what exists in countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden and New Zealand.  Under this plan, seniors will never experience another donut hole where they are forced to pay thousands of dollars for the life-saving medicine they need. We will also take bold action to take on the pharmaceutical industry by:

• Requiring Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices while maintaining access to all FDA-approved medications.
• Cut drug prices by 50% by making sure the U.S. pays no more for prescription drugs than other major countries.
• Allow patients, pharmacists and wholesalers to purchase lower-cost drugs from Canada and other countries.
• Exercise federal march-in rights to manufacture drugs produced at taxpayer expense.
• Require companies to disclose the costs of clinical drug trials.

"At a time when about half of American households over the age of 55 have no retirement savings and one out of five seniors are trying to live on less than $13,500 a year, our job is not to cut Social Security," wrote Bernie, who has been saying this for decades. "Our job is to expand Social Security so that everyone in this country can retire with the dignity they have earned and everyone with a disability can live with the security they need. Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history. Before Social Security was signed into law, nearly half of seniors lived in poverty. Today, while much too high, the poverty rate for seniors is down to 9.2 percent. Through good times and bad, Social Security has paid every nickel owed to every eligible American-- on time and without delay.  That is an extraordinary accomplishment. Despite what you may have heard from those who want to cut back on Social Security, let’s be clear: Social Security is not “going broke.” Social Security has a $2.9 trillion surplus and can pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 16 years.   Although Social Security’s finances are strong, Congress must strengthen and expand it for generations to come. How do we do that? Simple. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the wealthiest Americans in this country must pay their fair share into the system. Today, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $132,900 a year because the Social Security payroll tax is capped.

Here's the plan that should have him in the number one spot among seniors, just as he is among Americans under 40:

• First, we will make sure that Social Security will pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 52 years.
• Second, we will expand benefits across-the-board including a $1,300 a year benefit increase for seniors with incomes of $16,000 a year or less.
• Third, we will lift millions of seniors out of poverty by increasing the minimum benefits paid to low-income workers when they retire.
• Fourth, we will increase cost-of-living adjustments to keep up with the rising cost of health care and prescription drugs by establishing a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly.