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Americans Less Likely to Vote for Septuagenarian
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Age could be a determining factor in the 2008 United States presidential election, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 58 per cent of respondents are less likely to vote for a candidate who is over 72 years old.
In addition, 29 per cent of respondents are less likely to support a Mormon, 21 per cent would shun a candidate who smokes cigarettes, and 13 per cent would probably not vote for a woman. A black candidate and a twice-divorced contender have the lowest rejection rates, at six per cent.
Among Republican Party presidential hopefuls, Arizona senator John McCain will be 72 when the next presidential election takes place, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been divorced twice. The list of prospective Democratic Party candidates features a woman, New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and an African-American, Illinois senator Barack Obama.
On Feb. 28, McCain officially launched his presidential bid and criticized the handling of the Iraq war, declaring, "Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."
Polling Data
On another subject: I'm going to read a few attributes that might be found in a candidate for president. Please tell me if each would make you more likely to vote for that candidate for president, or less likely to vote for that candidate, or if it wouldn't matter.
More | Less | No | |
Someone who is over age 72 | 3% | 58% | 39% |
Someone who is a Mormon | 4% | 29% | 66% |
Someone who smokes cigarettes | 2% | 21% | 77% |
Someone who is a woman | 14% | 13% | 72% |
Someone who is black | 7% | 6% | 87% |
Someone who has been divorced twice | 3% | 6% | 71% |
Source: TNS / Washington Post / ABC News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,082 American adults, conducted from Feb. 22 to Feb. 25, 2007. Margin of error is 3 per cent.
