A strong majority of individuals over the age of 65 do not believe that Hillary Clinton understands their problems despite the presidential candidate’s consistent effort to cast herself as a grandmother.
According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday, 63 percent of individuals age 65 and up do not believe that the 67-year-old Democratic presidential candidate grasps their problems. Among all adults, a slim majority of 51 percent agree that Clinton does not understand the issues that plague them.
Younger Americans ages 18 to 39 are the only age group more likely to believe Clinton understands their problems than not. Unfortunately, Clinton’s competition, Bernie Sanders, has been fairing well with this demographic as of late. In fact, the independent Vermont senator has more than three times the support among young likely participants in the Iowa Democratic Caucus than that of Clinton.
Individuals in Clinton’s age bracket do not merely view her as ou of touch with their needs. They are overwhelmingly critical of Clinton’s handling of the controversy surrounding her use of personal email while working in President Obama’s State Department.
Sixty-nine percent of Americans age 65 and older disapprove of the way in which Clinton has handled inquiries regarding her use of personal email; a smaller majority of all Americans--55 percent--share the same negative opinion.
And, while 54 percent of U.S. adults believe Clinton tried to cover up the facts regarding her personal email system, that share skyrockets to 66 percent among the oldest bracket of Americans. All age groups are more likely than not to agree that the former secretary of state has attempted to conceal the truth.
Furthermore, six in 10 Americans over 65 deem Clinton’s use of personal email a legitimate issue in the 2016 presidential election.
Finally, while Clinton’s trustworthy score is low among all adults--56 percent do not view her as honest--it is worst among those her own age. Sixty-eight percent of individuals above age 65 do not label the Democratic presidential candidate trustworthy.
Hillary Clinton has consistently emphasized her identity as a grandmother throughout her presidential campaign, even including the descriptor on her Twitter page. Just hours before the poll’s release, Clinton wished her elder counterparts a "Happy Grandparents Day" on social media.
And, while Clinton may see her strongest figures among Millennials, Sanders has been increasingly winning over young voters in the Democratic Party, a fact House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) remarked upon recently after following the Vermont lawmaker on the West Coast.
"I was going right down that trail and it was just amazing to see," Pelosi told journalists last week. "Parents would come to me and say, ‘I’m for Hillary, I’m for this one, I’m for that one, [but] my kids are all for Bernie Sanders.’"