Amid President Trump’s efforts to appeal to seniors, a group he won handily in 2016, he tweeted a meme Tuesday night mocking opponent Joe Biden as “Biden for resident,” picturing his opponent in a wheelchair seated among elderly people in a nursing home.
The president has been trailing Biden among this age group — recent polls from CNN and the Wall Street Journal/NBC News found Biden has gained a more than 20-point lead over Mr. Trump among voters 65 and older — an astonishing reversal from 2016, when exit polls show he beat Hillary Clinton by roughly 7 points among the same group.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2020
That tweet also came after the president addressed a video to seniors in which he called them his “favorite people in the world.”
Mr. Trump, who is only three years younger than Biden, has often mocked Biden as “slow” and “sleepy,” and persistently questioned his mental capacity. Only days ago, Mr. Trump was hospitalized for COVID-19, fending off the illness with the help of a top-flight medical team who gave him an experimental drug treatment and constant care.
“Trump closing message seems to be insulting seniors and women who live in the suburbs, spreading Covid, and eliminating healthcare,” tweeted Democratic Senator Brian Schatz after Mr. Trump tweeted the senior meme.
The president’s fraying support from older voters comes amid a pandemic that has disproportionately affected and killed senior citizens, whose immune systems are less able to fight off the disease. The president receives poor marks, according to CBS News polling, on his handling of the pandemic.