COLUMBUS, GA. – Inside a small conference at a Holiday Inn a couple dozen senior citizens gathered to hear Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga., 2nd District) and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC, 6th District) speak about the importance of the senior voting block and veteran participation in the upcoming presidential election.
Nearly 155 million Americans voted during the previous presidential election. More than 75% of registered and active voters ages 65-74 voted in that election, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, making the senior voting block crucial to both candidates.
Upon entering the room to cheers and applause, Bishop, familiar with many of the faces in the room after decades of representing Georgia’s second district, said, “We’ve got work to do. This is a heck of a consequential election.”
Sanford, a lifelong Democrat, is running for re-election and will be challenged by Republican Wayne Johnson.
After having been in his seat since 1993, Bishop, 77, is the frontrunner, but wasn’t taking his long career for granted. He and Clyburn were on their way to another political gathering in Sumter County, Georgia after they were done in Columbus.
“We’ve got a great story to tell,” said Clyburn about Democratic supporters and the party as a whole. “We should not be on the defensive, let’s go out and win this election.”
Clyburn made reference to what he sometimes hears from Democrats in his home district about what the Biden-Harris administration has done during their three and a half years in the White House.
“What has Joe Biden and Kamala Harris done? I saw my wife’s monthly bills for insulin. Sometimes it was $400 per month, sometimes it was $600 per month,” recalled Clyburn about his late wife’s decades-long battle with diabetes. The capped price for insulin is now $35 and Clyburn asked the crowd again, “What has Biden and Harris done for you?”
He would go on to use student loan debt relief, the trillions of dollars spent on infrastructure, investments in internet access in rural communities, and championing affordable health care through the Affordable Care Act.
The Atlanta Voice spoke with Black voters in the room about why they agreed with Bishop when he said this election is “consequential.” Everything from not trusting presumed Republican presidential nominee and former United States President Donald J. Trump to immigration were on their minds.
“He’s trying to bamboozle Black folks. He’s a liar and a racist,” said South Carolina native and Columbus resident Christopher Pinckney, 84. “Trump ain’t for nobody but Trump.”
“For one thing, we are going to exercise our right to vote. We have a choice and our choice is Biden,” said Linda Parker, 75. “We don’t need another four years of Donald Trump. He doesn’t mean us no good, especially Blacks.”
“I’m an Afro-Latina and I’m really concerned about the immigration situation in this country,” said Daisy Lynton, 72, a native Panamanian. “You have to vote in order to make change in this country.”