AARP Hearing Center
.jpg?anchor=17,8&q=80&color=ffffffff&u=8wsalu&w=375 "Fall Movie Preview 2026")
Older Voters in Swing States Could Decide Control of Congress. Here Is What’s Driving Them
AARP asked voters 50-plus about their most pressing concerns as they cast ballots
12-minute read
Sabrinia Smith of Michigan, Lyle Grimm of Iowa and Rita Medina of Texas are among the older voters in swing states AARP spoke with about what’s motivating them to cast ballots in the midterm elections.
Left to right: Nick Hagen, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Christopher Lee
Key takeaways
- Older Americans are very motivated to vote, but the issues that motivate them vary.
- Affordability, health care and Social Security are among top concerns.
- AARP has many resources to help older Americans cast their ballots. Visit aarp.org/votes.
The balance of power in Congress next year will depend on who shows up for the midterm elections — and where. The outcome in swing states with competitive House and Senate races will determine whether Republicans keep both chambers of Congress for two more years or whether Democrats can regain a foothold of power on Capitol Hill.
Older voters in those states — Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas — are especially motivated to cast their ballots, building on a record of past elections where voters age 50 and older flexed outsize influence in local, state and national contests. AARP polling consistently shows the important role voters 50-plus play in this year’s midterms.
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
AARP visited seven swing states to ask older voters what’s on their minds as they cast their ballots. Affordability, health care and Social Security were among the topics raised. But so, too, were immigration, the environment and candidate integrity.
AARP is a nonpartisan organization and does not endorse or make contributions to any candidate for public office.
Text has been edited for length and clarity.
ALASKA
Rusty McKenzie, with his wife Kristy McKenzie, worries about the economy and says the rising price of gas “hurts everybody.”
Ash Adams
Rusty McKenzie, 60
Anchorage
Rusty McKenzie spent much of his career working on Alaska’s North Slope for the oil and gas industry.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always tried to vote. I worked on the slope for a long time, and in national elections, they actually had [polling places] on the slope, and I would go and vote. I think it’s very important that everybody gets out and does their part. Otherwise, you can’t complain about what happens if you don’t want to take part and do your civic duty and vote.
I’ve contributed to Social Security since I was probably 10, 12 years old. I delivered newspapers, and I paid my Social Security then, and I pay it today. Of course, I’m worried about it being there. I’m kind of a fiscal conservative, so I would like to see what people have put into it stay and be available for them. Social Security needs to stick around.
I’m definitely worried about the economy. With the price of gas the way it is, it hurts everybody. It definitely benefits the state of Alaska with the price of oil $140 a barrel. But for every average American, the price of gasoline and the price of oil is definitely jacking up their costs.
GEORGIA
Jacqueline Collins says caregiving is an important factor in how she votes.
Olivia Bowdoin
Jacqueline Collins, 71
Atlanta
I was a caregiver for my mother, who died not too long ago. It was a fight every step of the way. I feel that the elderly are really not taken care of the way that they should be. A friend of mine’s daughter came to Atlanta. She has four children. I was helping her get on her feet. I was actually paying for her to live while she was trying to get into the welfare system. There is a waiting list over a mile long to get into a shelter. It took forever for her even to get food stamps. I am looking very carefully before making my decision on who I’m going to vote on. I go to as many meetings as I can just to see what people are talking about. It’s very challenging for people right now.
Jessie Navarrete is concerned about immigration and says people should vote if they want changes.
Olivia Bowdoin
Jessie Navarrete, 66
Atlanta
Navarrete is a Venezuelan native who became a U.S. citizen in 2023.
This will be my second time voting. I think, right now, you need to vote if you want changes. My biggest concern is immigration. People are being deported every day. I am worried about losing my citizenship.
I lost my job, so right now I am on unemployment, and I just went on Social Security. I wasn’t planning on going on Social Security until I turned 70. But the economy and the employment situation in this country is so weak that I had to go on Social Security. I’m very worried about Social Security, and that makes me definitely want to go to vote.
IOWA
Calvetta Berry doesn’t have medical insurance because she says health care premiums are too costly.
Danny Wilcox Frazier
Calvetta Berry, 55
Des Moines
I haven’t often voted. No one taught me to vote. Now, as I get older, I’m thinking that it’s very important to vote. Ask me maybe five years ago, I probably wouldn’t even have thought [voting in the midterms] was a big deal. Like, I’m just going to vote for the president, and there we go. So I’m learning. Even at my old age, I’m still learning.
Midterms are very important. No one, especially an older person, should have to be trying to figure out how they’re going to pay for hospital bills or medicine versus food. I ran into that this past year. My premiums were too high, so I don’t have medical [insurance] right now. My kids have it, but I don’t have it because I couldn’t afford to feed my kids or pay this high premium that I have. I haven’t been sick, but I do need to go get a checkup. I do need to see the dentist, but right now I just can’t afford it.
Lyle Grimm wants the government to do more to protect small farms.
Danny Wilcox Frazier
Lyle Grimm, 68
North English
Grimm operates a 125-acre family farm with cattle and some crops.
I’m more on the independent side; I don’t care about the party. That’s the biggest problem we have with our political system. We’ve got Republicans and Democrats, and I wish we never had either one. If we had one group, then hey, that’s the way it is. If you’re in there and you don’t get the job done, you’re out. Out here in the rural area, candidates don’t come that much. They’re going to your cities [instead].
The biggest issue I would probably have is being able to keep the small farms. And we’re losing more and more every year. I have a neighbor. He’s probably 72 or 73. He’s been farming by himself for quite a few years. He lost his wife maybe five years ago or more. But he’s still doing it. When the parents pass, the younger generation [should] get it in a way that they don’t have to pay for the farm, so that it’s handed down.
Jeff Martin, 56
Newton
Martin survived renal cancer and his wife, Lisa, is battling breast cancer.
Well, I’m looking for that candidate that checks as many boxes as they possibly can with where my concerns are. The cancer rate is something that I’m fighting every day. I was lucky enough, but I have a high risk moving forward. My wife, unfortunately, is going to be dealing with some sort of treatment the rest of her life. So clean water, responsible farming, making sure that we’re doing the things we need to with the environment to make sure we’re reducing those cancer-causing agents is probably going to be the thing that I’m going to be paying attention to the closest.
Dave Moore depends on Social Security to cover half of his expenses.
Danny Wilcox Frazier
Dave Moore, 75
Iowa City
Affordability concerns me because I feel like everywhere I go, it’s biting me. It’s not even a little guy. It’s a middle guy. It’s an upper-middle guy. They know they’ve got us everywhere you go, and it’s only really recently I’ve felt this way. I call them the oligarchs and the billionaires, the trillionaires.
There’s always been times of inflation when things got expensive, gas was high, but now I feel like they figured out that they got us, and they’re gonna keep getting us, keep squeezing every dollar they can out of any peon on every block. And how can we find our way out of this situation?
Five or 10 years ago, I would have said that anybody that worried about Social Security was a fearmonger. But now, as I’ve seen other good things that we took for granted waver, I’m beginning to wonder about Social Security. It seems astonishing you could take away something that people have paid into. It was a deal that was cut as a part of being an American. We don’t have high amounts of Social Security because we led lives not making a ton of money. We depend on it very much. It pays half our bills, probably. And, at some point, will pay most of our bills.
MAINE
Jim Fisher is worried about the level of government borrowing and wants politicians to think long-term.
Ryan David Brown
Jim Fisher, 69
Blue Hill
Fisher is the town manager of Deer Isle. His father was Congressman Joseph L. Fisher of Virginia.
I think the message I would send is: Please think long-term about how we’re going to maintain a sustainable economy. I’m very concerned about the level of borrowing right now. We’re mortgaging ourselves into an impossible financial crisis in the future. We’re saddling our kids and grandkids with a lot of debt. I would invest in productivity. I would invest in educating young people to be prepared for the future. I would invest in technologies that reduce our environmental footprint, allow us to achieve greater density with less pollution. A bunch of things like that, but they’re mostly long-term. You invest in education now, the payoff will be maybe 20 years from now.
When my father was in the House of Representatives, he [helped write] the Superfund legislation. And that was a very long-term process of trying to figure out: What are we going to do with these mistakes we’ve made? We were stuck with these old mine sites that are toxic. That kind of thinking was long-range. So I would look for the next congressman or senator to think about sort of the long-term ethics of how we run this country and how we avoid causing long-term harm for short-term gain.
Dan Miller takes care of his mother and calls the caregiving situation “extremely acute.”
Ryan David Brown
Dan Miller, 51
Belfast
Miller operates a boatyard, sits on the Belfast City Council and spent 20 years as volunteer firefighter.
My mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but until a few weeks ago, she was still able to stay at home. A couple weeks ago, she suffered a pretty major stroke. She’s been in the hospital since. The hospital is at the end of their ability to treat her because she’s not making the progress required. She’s going to be sent home, and we’re trying to juggle how to pay for 24-hour care for her. I don’t have a solution for the state or for the insurance companies, and I know that these things can go on forever and are extremely expensive for a caregiver. The caregiving situation is extremely acute right now. To me, it’s not a political issue specifically. There’s no number that we could reduce my taxes by that would solve this problem for me. And so I consider it a social issue that needs some government oversight, policy, regulation, planning.
MICHIGAN
Jay Williams wants candidates to promote more affordable health care.
Nick Hagen
Jay Williams, 51
Detroit
Williams and his wife, Sarah, operate an independent bookstore.
I do want more candidates that speak to Medicare for all. As a small business owner, I don’t think a lot of people realize that when you tie health care to employment, you really stifle entrepreneurship. Some people may not leave a job because of their health care. Both my wife and I have done that recently. And so health care, what used to be kind of something in the background because it was tied to employment, is now every year kind of this ‘OK, now what are the costs going to be? How do you plan for that?’ So I’m very much in favor of candidates that speak to fixing the ACA or Medicare for all or anything related to making health care more affordable and available to more people.
Sabrinia Smith, 68
Grosse Pointe Woods
I used to spend $38 for a tank of gas, and now it’s $68 and some odd cents. I don’t see how anybody is surviving that has to go far for work. I only live five minutes away, and a tank of gas lasts me a month. But I have a daughter who works almost 40 minutes away, with six kids, and it’s like, How do you even afford the gas to get to work? Even buying food, I noticed it. I clip digital coupons faithfully when I’m having my morning coffee.
NORTH CAROLINA
Sandy Riccardi says her family relies heavily on Social Security.
Mike Belleme
Sandy Riccardi, 61
Asheville
Social Security for us is kind of huge. My husband is 83, and he’s still working like a dog. It’s a blessing and a curse because we are musicians. He is a pianist, and he has work at two different schools as a collaborative pianist. He would like to be able to pull back from it, but it keeps him alive and sharp. How many 83-year-olds can play a Beethoven sonata? I would love to be able to retire my husband because I have a long honey-do list. But as I have also been a music teacher my whole life, a musician, my income has been relatively small. At 62, I could actually start taking Social Security and take a portion of what my husband’s is worth. We rely on it heavily. We’re month-to-month here.
Ann Dunn, 79
Ann Dunn wants the government to regulate and monitor AI.
Mike Belleme
Asheville
AI is a very big concern for me. I use it when I need it. I still do a lot of research and write papers. But it’s crossed the line into necessary. It’s infrastructure now for us, just like electricity and highways and the internet. And I feel as if government has a responsibility to supervise our infrastructure. That now includes AI, and that’s not going to monitor itself.
TEXAS
Rita Mendina is concerned about the rising cost of health care.
Christopher Lee
Rita Mendina, 83
San Antonio
The last few years, Medicare has been really good to us. We have not had to pay for medication. We don’t have to pay anything. But this year, all of a sudden, we’re paying copays. We’re paying a little more for certain medications. That doesn’t worry me right now. But it’ll worry me if it continues that way. We can’t really afford expensive medications or the expensive visits to the emergency room. That’s where we go half the time.
Lucila Springs, 71
Lucila Springs wants candidates who are “trustworthy, honest, working for the people.”
Christopher Lee
San Antonio
I am one of five siblings, and I have a brother who lives here in San Antonio also. Normally, the girls are the ones who are the caregivers for the family. So I cared for my mother. I think the benefits through the Medicare system do have help for certain people. We had to jump through a lot of hoops to get the care needed. I wish there was a better system in place. I just want a candidate with a heart that’s going to treat people equally across the board.
I want somebody who’s trustworthy, honest, working for the people. I don’t want anybody who’s out there just for themselves and billionaires. I have a big heart for what immigrants are going through, people of every color. We’re all created equal. And I just feel like there’s room for us to do better. I’m going to vote for somebody who I feel has God in their heart and is going to do the right thing for the people they represent.
Join Our Fight to Make Sure Your Vote Counts
AARP is a nonpartisan organization that never supports or opposes candidates for office. We believe the right to vote is fundamental, and we advocate for policies ensuring that Americans 50 and older can exercise that right without unnecessary barriers. Here’s what you can do to help:
- Learn more about voting in your state this year.
- Pledge to vote for candidates in 2026 who will protect and strengthen Social Security and support family caregivers.
- Sign up to become an AARP activist for the latest news and alerts on issues you care about.
- AARP is your fierce defender on issues that matter to people 50-plus. Become a member or renew your membership today.
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
More From AARP
Older Americans on the Election's Front Lines
Poll workers are in short supply, but those on the job tout the rewards
What ID Do You Need to Bring to the Polls?
Make sure you know what documents are required to vote in your state
State Ballot Issues Affecting Older Americans
Voters in 40 states will see questions about issues including taxes, housing and voting