Eileen Higgins elected as Miami’s first female mayor
Eileen Higgins wins the runoff election for Miami mayor, becoming the city’s first woman and first Democratic representative in nearly 30 years.
Recent election victories have raised hopes that Democrats will retake both houses of Congress in next year’s midterm elections, but the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests some of that enthusiasm may be premature.
Republicans hold a significant advantage with older voters, who are more likely to vote in non-presidential terms. And these voters may be less swayed by the kind of cost-of-living issues that have fueled Democratic campaigns in recent years, polls have found.
Joel Payne, a longtime Democratic strategist, said the poll “shows that Democrats still have a lot of work to do to unify their base and prove they can respond to the moment.”
Democratic candidates have won a series of victories in recent months, capitalizing on voters’ concerns about the economy and President Donald Trump’s overall unpopularity, allowing them to inject energy into a party that was moribund after last year’s defeat of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The most recent victory was in the city of Miami, where Eileen Higgins was elected mayor on Tuesday, the first Democrat in nearly 30 years. This comes after Democrat Mikie Sherrill won last month’s New Jersey gubernatorial election and Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor of Virginia.
Warning signs for Democrats
But the Reuters/Ipsos poll contains some red flashing red flags heading into a year in which the party needs a net three-seat win to regain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a net four-seat win to win a seat in the Senate.
About 46% of U.S. voters over the age of 50 said they planned to vote for the Republican running in their congressional district, 8 points more than the 38% who said they would vote for a Democrat, according to a poll that ended Monday.
The strong Republican lead marks a significant change from past midterm election cycles, which took place midway through U.S. presidential terms.
In December 2021, ahead of the last midterm elections, older voters supported the Republican Party by just one point, 43% to 42%. In the same month before the 2018 election, when Democrats won the House of Representatives, they had a slim lead among senior Americans 50 and older, 40% to 38%.
As usual, Democrats have an advantage among young voters. The poll showed him leading by 11 points in the general parliamentary vote among voters under 50, 42% to 31%. The latest poll showed that the country is deeply divided, with 40% of voters of all ages choosing a Democrat and 39% choosing a Republican.
Older voters are more likely to participate in midterm elections
However, older voters are seen as more reliable voters in the midterm elections, and if Trump does not appear on the ballot, it is possible that a key demographic of the Democratic Party will not be elected.
Doug Sosnick, a former political adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said Democrats are currently good at drawing out high-propensity voters, with the exception of older Americans, which could be a problem next year.
“We have to look at everything through the prism of interphase,” Sosnik said.
According to a Pew Research Center analysis, voters 50 and older made up 56% of voters in last year’s presidential election, but they will make up 64% of voters in the 2022 midterm elections. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll of 4,434 adults nationwide found that 60% of older voters strongly agreed that they would regret not voting in next year’s parliamentary elections, compared to 40% of younger voters who said the same.
This pattern played out in recent gubernatorial elections, with both Sherrill and Spanberger winning by squeezing enough support from older voters. According to exit polls conducted by a coalition of networks including CNN, both parties won about two-thirds of voters under 45, but barely a majority among voters over 45.
Reaching those voters may still be a challenge. Affordability was a central theme in Sherrill and Spanberger’s campaigns, as well as in Higgins’ candidacy in Miami. But the Reuters/Ipsos poll found older voters were less likely to cite the cost of living as the most important issue for how they vote next year. Five in 10 voters aged 18 to 49 said the cost of living was their top priority, compared to just four in 10 older voters who said the same.
Older voters have a variety of concerns.
Older voters may be more insulated from everyday concerns, Sosnik said, adding that “wealth creates an environment where concerns about a variety of issues arise.”
About 27% of voters over 50 said democratic values and norms were the most important factor, compared to 22% of younger voters. Polls also differed by age group, where democratic values are most important, with older voters more likely than younger voters to raise the risk of non-referendum voting and election fraud.
Additionally, about 19% of voters over 50 say immigration is their top concern, compared to 12% of younger voters, an area in which Republicans have historically held an advantage.
Sosnik said Democrats don’t need to revamp their messaging next year, but instead need to tweak it to appeal to older voters and make prosperity “an issue for all ages.”
Beyond job creation and affordability, he said, that means making it easier for Americans to build careers and accumulate wealth.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos online poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points among all registered voters, including those over 50. Among younger voters, the margin of error was 3 percentage points.
Reporting by Jason Lange and Jim Oliphant. Edited by Scott Malone and Lisa Shoemaker.
