Election Poll Surprise Driven In Part by 65+ Female Voters

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Poll after poll has shown the presidential race to be neck-and-neck — even our Kiplinger Letter team called it “an historically close race.” The near-50-50 result, poll after poll, state after state, has led some analysts to wonder aloud if “herding” is in effect, where pollsters are essentially fudging the results so their poll doesn't show a result wildly different from everyone else. Basically: If everyone’s saying the race is 50-50, you don’t want to be the one saying it's 55-45.

Unless you’re J. Ann Selzer, that is. The “Selzer poll” (technically the “Des Moines Register / Mediacom Iowa Poll”) released this weekend showed Vice President Kamala Harris up at 47% over former President Donald Trump at 44% among likely voters, a massive shake-up over what other polls have been saying and over previous Des Moines Register / Mediacom polling, which had shown Trump in the lead.

Selzer, who acknowledged it was “hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said that “age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers.” In particular, per the results, voters 65 and older favor Harris — and women 65 and older favor her 63% to 28%.

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What's driving older voters in Iowa?

"It's a 2-to-1 margin among women aged 65 and over, and so there's obviously something going on here," Selzer told the BBC. "Older people is who you want to appeal to because they're the most reliable voters, and Kamala Harris is doing very well with that group."

One 79-year-old voter quoted by the Des Moines Register pointed to reproductive health as well as democracy as her reasons to vote for Harris.

This summer, Iowa enacted a six-week abortion ban, and abortion bans have been shown to bring voters coming out swinging against them, which could help explain this polling result, particularly the change from previous Iowa polls. Given that Trump appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and that Harris has been a vocal supporter of abortion rights, it’s not a surprise this issue would have people favoring Harris.

Many 65+ women may be moved to vote for Harris due to their own life experiences with reproductive health, as well as, of course, opinions about women's freedoms and rights. Abortion bans also impact healthcare for people of all ages by creating environments some doctors don’t want to be in.

As Sarah Zhang at The Atlantic detailed, an abortion ban in Idaho led to labor-and-delivery units closing and about one-fifth of OB/GYNs practicing obstetrics to leave the state. This has implications for women aged past fertility, as Zhang wrote: “Idaho is an attractive place to retire, and the state’s growing population of older women need gynecological care as they age into menopause and beyond.”

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Social Security and Medicare are also big areas of interest for 65+ voters. In a Kiplinger newsletter poll last week (disclaimer: by no means as exactly scientific as other polls), "Retirement & Social Security" was by far the most popular answer when asked which topic is most important to our readers this election cycle.

Harris' stances on Social Security and Medicare have some prospective wins with older voters as the Harris-Biden administration successfully negotiated drug prices with Medicare. Additionally, a few weeks ago on "The View," Harris announced a proposal for Medicare to cover in-home healthcare, a popular idea.

Trump's stances on Social Security and Medicare include an idea to ban taxes on Social Security. While cutting taxes always sounds like a popular idea, there are problems with Trump's proposal to cut Social Security taxes, as Kiplinger has reported, including that it would likely ultimately hurt the program. Without the taxes, Social Security would become insolvent in 2032, one year earlier than current projections, while Medicare would become insolvent by 2030, six years earlier than current estimates, per an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

These issues could also be on voters' minds in Iowa.

What does the polling mean?

If you don't know by now, after having lived through 2016 and 2020, poll results do not always accurately predict election results. Harris coming out ahead of Trump in this Iowa poll was shocking, given that Trump won Iowa in the last two elections, but it doesn't mean she's actually going to win Iowa.

Selzer acknowledged as much, telling the BBC: "Neither of the major candidates gets to 50%, so there's still a little squishiness in what could actually happen come Tuesday."

We'll all just have to wait and see.

Alexandra Svokos is the digital managing editor of Kiplinger. She holds an MBA from NYU Stern in finance and management and a BA in economics and creative writing from Columbia University. Alexandra has over a decade of experience in journalism and previously served as the senior editor of digital for ABC News, where she directed daily news coverage across topics through major events of the early 2020s for the network's website, including stock market trends, the remote and return-to-work revolutions, and the national economy. Before that, she pioneered politics and election coverage for Elite Daily and went on to serve as the senior news editor for that group.

Alexandra was recognized with an "Up & Comer" award at the 2018 Folio: Top Women in Media awards, and she was asked twice by the Nieman Journalism Lab to contribute to their annual journalism predictions feature. She has also been asked to speak on panels and give presentations on the future of media and on business and media, including by the Center for Communication and Twipe.