Phone banks and pickleball: How the Biden campaign plans to court older voters

WILMINGTON, Del. — As Democrats fret about losing ground with young voters in November, the Biden campaign is increasingly heartened by a countervailing trend — a swing among the nation’s oldest voters in favor of the nation’s oldest president.

A spate of recent polls shows softening support for President Joe Biden among some traditionally solid Democratic constituencies — not just young voters, but also Black and Latino voters. Yet some of the same surveys show Biden pulling ahead among voters 65 and older, a trend that, if it carries through to November, would make him the first Democrat to win seniors since Al Gore in 2000.

With that in mind, on Tuesday the campaign is launching Seniors for Biden-Harris, a national organizing initiative to leverage what it sees as key advantages among those voters, a campaign spokesperson said. Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will help launch the effort with an event on Friday in New Hampshire, the battleground state with the highest percentage of residents 65 and older, according to the campaign spokesperson.

First lady Jill Biden will also bolster the outreach with battleground state events in the weeks ahead, along with other surrogates who will fan out for events that include postcard writing, phone banks and even pickleball tournaments, the spokesperson said.

Biden advisers and his Democratic allies offer a variety of explanations for the recent shift among older voters, including some factors that they say also explain diminishing support among other groups.

Older voters, they say, are far more likely than the youngest eligible voters to consume traditional media, like newspapers and network newscasts; younger voters are increasingly tuned out or get information from places