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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are holding last minute campaign events in Florida, encouraging supporters to come out and vote in today's primary. Both Republican candidates have reached out in particular to older voters - and for good reason. Nearly one in five Floridians is retired. And a high percentage of them turn out to vote.
From Miami, NPR's Greg Allen reports.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: How important is the senior vote in Florida? A survey conducted by AARP predicts that as many as 60 percent of those who cast ballots in today's Republican primary - six out of 10 voters - will be retirees. If that number is surprising, AARP Florida director Jeff Johnson says, remember primaries typically have a low turnout.
JEFF JOHNSON: When you think about who votes in primaries, they tend to be the most dedicated, loyal voters - the people who vote in every election. And for years, politicians and political operatives have known that the older you are, the more likely you are to be one of those regular voters.
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ALLEN: In Pensacola this weekend, retiree Catherine Murphy came out to a rally for her candidate, Mitt Romney. I asked her what issue for her is most important.
CATHERINE MURPHY: I think the economy, yes. There's too many people that don't have the income from their work - my own son, for one.
ALLEN: Florida is struggling with unemployment higher than the national average and a still dismal housing market, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure.
University of South Florida political scientist Susan McManus says retirees in the Sunshine State tend to be a little wealthier than retirees elsewhere. But this economic downturn, she says, has had a big impact on Florida's senior citizens.
SUSAN MCMANUS: They're terribly worried about the economic future of their children and grandchildren because many retirees in Florida have had to step up to the plate and help their adult children make their house notes or, you know, help them send their kids to college.
ALLEN: In surveys and interviews she conducted with groups of senior voters in Florida, McManus says she finds many are also worried about the nation's debt.
MCMANUS: They're also very likely to say, let's reduce the deficit. But, by the way, let's not really mess too much with Medicare and Social Security.
ALLEN: Retiree Catherine Murphy says changes may be needed to strengthen Medicare and Social Security, but she's leery about the possibility of cuts.
MURPHY: People are depending on that. They don't want it reduced any. They could reduce in other areas that are wasteful expenditures. But this is a necessary expenditure.
JOHNSON: Both Romney and Gingrich support making reforms to Medicare. Both propose giving the elderly the option to stay in traditional Medicare or move into private insurance plans. Gingrich has also talked about giving younger workers the choice of opting out of Social Security and setting up 401(k) type retirement accounts. Romney would try to strengthen Social Security by raising the retirement age and slowing the growth in benefits for wealthier retirees.
ALLEN: But you haven't heard much about those proposals as the candidates campaigned over the past week in Florida. Moderators didn't bring them up in the two debates. And Jeff Johnson of AARP says the candidates didn't raise them because they're worried that whatever they say may be used against them in the primary or general election.
JOHNSON: It is a perilous course for them to raise these issues. But the reality is that whoever the next president is, is going to have to deal with the issues of Social Security and Medicare and their long-term future.
ALLEN: The two Republican frontrunners have campaigned in The Villages, the central Florida community that's home to nearly 80,000 retirees. At the government center there a few days ago, Dana Carter cast his ballot in early voting for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. He said afterwards that he is concerned about the future of both Medicare and Social Security.
DANA CARTER: I don't think that it worries me so much about what we get, because we're already to that age that we know where we are. I worry about the people that are coming up behind us. Because, unless they change something, unless they stop stealing from the Social Security trust fund, there won't be anything for those younger people.
ALLEN: The message from Florida retirees: fix Social Security and Medicare, but do it without making cuts to programs many here depend on. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.