Presidential Politics: Is There an "Aging Rust Belt" Effect Ahead?

As we (finally) get to the early primary and caucus stages of this Presidential election year, I'm struck by how much the pundits are talking about changing demographics, including the potential impact of growing diversity of race and national origin among potential voters.  At the same time, it will be interesting to see whether "aging" of the population, including the growing share of older voters, will play an equally significant role.  At least one early evaluation of swing state voting compares growing diversity of the Sun Belt states with aging in Rust Belt states:

Di­versity is also spread­ing, but much more slowly, in the six Rust Belt swing states (Iowa, Michigan, New Hamp­shire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wis­con­sin). Com­pared with 2008, the mod­el pro­jects that by 2016 the white eli­gible voter share will drop in a range from Pennsylvania at the high end (3.1 per­cent­age points), to New Hamp­shire at the low end (1.2 points). Be­hind strong Obama turnout ef­forts, from 2008 to 2012, minor­it­ies in Ohio and Pennsylvania grew even faster as a share of ac­tu­al voters than as eli­gible voters. That helped Obama win Ohio in 2012, des­pite at­tract­ing ex­actly the same share of the white vote (41 per­cent) that Gore did and less than Kerry did (44 per­cent) when each lost the state in 2000 and 2004 re­spect­ively. (Obama also held Pennsylvania, des­pite win­ning con­sid­er­ably less of the white vote than either Gore or Kerry, who both car­ried the state.) But, over­all, ra­cial change is not nearly as big a factor in these brawny battle­grounds as in the Sun Belt swing states.

 

In those crit­ic­al Rust Belt states, the key demo­graph­ic change is the one cap­tured in the second chart: the pop­u­la­tion’s aging. In all six Rust Belt swing states, the mod­el pro­jects that adults 50 and older will con­sti­tute at least 45 per­cent of eli­gible voters by 2016; for each state ex­cept Pennsylvania, that would be an in­crease of at least 2.3 per­cent­age points since 2008. New Hamp­shire leads the list with an in­crease of 3.6 per­cent­age points in the over-50 share of eli­gible voters; the mod­el pro­jects Pennsylvania, which star­ted with the old­est eli­gible pop­u­la­tion, to in­crease the least at 1.8 per­cent­age points. (The Sun Belt swing states are also aging, but gen­er­ally not quite as fast as the Rust Belt battle­grounds.)

For more charts and analysis of historical facts and trends, read The Most Valuable Voters of 2016 by Robert Brownstein for the National Journal (February 2015).

My own sense is there is at least one major commonality among many older voters and younger non-white voters:  fear that they haven't earned enough -- or won't be able to earn enough --  to survive or thrive in a constricted economy.  Is it easier for the candidates to talk about terrorism or national security than it is to talk about social security through the lifespan?