With America dealing with the most devastating pandemic in a century, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression more than 80 years ago, the most intense and widespread protests and unrest over racial inequity in decades, and yet another bitter U.S. Supreme Court confirmation battle, it’s little wonder that some issues that usually dominate presidential elections have been pushed to the side.
“We’re certainly concerned that our issues have been overshadowed because when these things pass – and they will pass – the fundamental bedrock issues for Americans – things like their health, taking care of aging parents, Medicare, prescription drug prices, Social Security – those things are still going to be with us,” AARP New Hampshire state director Todd Fahey told the Monitor.
Social Security, Medicare, and prescription drug prices didn’t make the list of topics at last month’s first general election presidential debate between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump or at last week’s showdown between Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence.
“It’s really important that the voters understand where each candidate stands on these singularly important issues,” Fahey said. “They are of great importance to the nation and the candidates need to speak to all of them.”
Biden, courting seniors Tuesday at a stop in the battleground state of Florida, took aim at the president over drug prices.
“He says he wants to lower drug prices, but he hasn’t done a single thing to do it,” Biden said.
That brief mention is the exception rather than the rule in a presidential campaign currently dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, the flattened economy, and the high court confirmation fight.
Fahey said AARP is trying to keep those issues from fading into the background and reporting back to its members.
“We’re trying to cut through the noise a little more surgically because I do think there is a huge appetite amongst the 50-plus voter, which remains the most potent and viable voting bloc,” Fahey said. “We’re trying to… give people ready access to good, reliable, informational matters that are really of key importance to them in this election.”
He noted that AARP conducted interviews with both Trump and the former vice president on issues important to seniors. The questions and answers are posted on their website – AARP.org.
“You can see where they stand on these key issues because sometimes these issues are not coming out on the debates,” Fahey said. “We need to make sure those messages are heard for this reason – it’s really important that the voters understand where each candidate stands on these singularly important issues.”
Fahey spotlighted AARP’s “Protect Voters 50+” campaign, which aims to make sure that its members are able to safely vote – whether in-person at a polling station or by absentee ballot – as well as spotlight where the candidates stand on the organization’s key issues.
He noted AARP’s New Hampshire chapter “sent a mailing to every single member – explaining their options for voting safely and for requesting absentee ballot and we did that in conjunction with the Secretary of State’s office. We then did a tele-town hall with Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlon to further get out our message and to make sure people understood their options and we’ve done many, many segments on that.”
Fahey added that the group has also posted video voter guides in which they asked the gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and congressional candidates to speak “with specificity about what they would do” on AARP’S five key issues.
With less than three weeks to go until Election Day on Nov. 3, a new poll indicates that Biden maintains a sizeable advantage over the president in New Hampshire, which for a generation has been a key battleground state in the general election.
According to a Suffolk University poll conducted for the Boston Globe, Biden leads Trump 51%-41% among likely voters in New Hampshire. The poll was conducted Oct. 8-12 and was released Wednesday.
Surveys by the University of New Hampshire and Saint Anselm College that were conducted earlier this month both indicated Biden topping the president by 12 points.
Four years ago 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton held a slight three-tenths of one percent edge over Trump in an average of the public opinion polls in the Granite State on the eve of the election. Clinton ended up winning the vote in New Hampshire by the same razor-thin margin, to capture the state’s four electoral votes.
The Suffolk University poll also indicates Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen – who’s running for a third 6-year term representing New Hampshire in the Senate – topping GOP challenger Corky Messner 51%-36%. And it shows Republican Gov. Chris Sununu – who’s bidding for a third 2-year term in the Corner Office – leading Democratic challenger and New Hampshire Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes 55%-31%.
A quarter of New Hampshire likely voters questioned in the Suffolk University poll said they planned to vote by absentee ballot.
According to new numbers released by the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office on Tuesday, 179,054 general election absentee ballots have now been requested and 78,561 have already been returned to city or town clerks. The number of ballots already returned tops the roughly 75,000 absentee ballots that were cast in the 2016 election.