Romney Leads Obama Among Veteran Voters: Romney Releases Memorial Day Video

Veterans Give Romney Big Lead Over Obama

U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge.

These data, from an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted April 11-May 24, show that 24% of all adult men are veterans, compared with 2% of adult women.

Obama and Romney are tied overall at 46% apiece among all registered voters in this sample. Men give Romney an eight-point edge, while women opt for Obama over Romney by seven points.

It turns out that the male skew for Romney is driven almost entirely by veterans. Romney leads by one point among nonveteran men, contrasted with the 28-point edge Romney receives among male veterans.

The small percentage of female veterans in the U.S., in contrast to their male counterparts, do not differ significantly in their presidential vote choice from the vast majority of women who are not veterans.

The proportion of U.S. men who are armed forces veterans rises dramatically among those who are 60 and older.

The military draft was in force in the U.S. from shortly before the U.S. entry into World War II until the early 1970s. A majority of men now 70 to 89 served in the military, including almost three-quarters of those aged 80 to 89. Less than a fifth of men younger than 50 have served in the military. There is little variation in military service among women across these age groups.

Age makes little substantive difference in the vote preferences of male veterans. Those younger than 50 are roughly as likely to support Romney as are those 60 and older. Male veterans aged 50 to 59 are slightly less skewed toward Romney, but still support him by a 15-point margin.

Bottom Line

Veterans in the U.S. today are mostly male and two-thirds are aged 50 or older. In a population that is currently evenly split in its preferences for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney for president, veterans stand out for their 24-point preference for Romney. About a fourth of men are veterans, and it is their strong skew toward Romney that essentially creates the GOP candidate's leading position among men today. Among nonveteran men, Obama and Romney are essentially tied.

Why veterans are so strong in their preference for the Republican presidential candidate is not clear. Previous Gallup analysis has suggested that two processes may be at work. Men who serve in the military may become socialized into a more conservative orientation to politics as a result of their service. Additionally, men who in the last decades have chosen to enlist in the military may have a more Republican orientation to begin with.

Veterans' strong preference for Romney in this election occurs even though Romney himself is not a military veteran -- though Obama shares this nonveteran status. This will be the first election since World War II in which neither major-party candidate is a veteran.

Barring unforeseen developments such as the re-institution of the military draft, the proportion of the male population in this country that will have served in the armed forces will decrease in the years ahead as the older population dominated by veterans dies off. These data suggest that Democrats could get an overall boost from this demographic phenomenon as these apparently reliable Republican voters become a smaller and smaller proportion of the population.



Poll: Romney leads Obama among Veterans

As Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama take a campaign break to pay tribute on Memorial Day, a poll released Monday indicates the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has a big lead over Obama among veterans.

Fifty-eight percent of veterans support Romney, while 34% back the president, according to a new Gallup survey.

In recent weeks, polls have indicated significant gender gap between Obama and Romney, with woman more favorable to the president and men leaning more towards Romney.

Interestingly, the new poll shows that Romney's male advantage may be attributed to his lead among veterans, given that one in four men in the United States have served in the military. When taking into account only non-veteran men, Obama and Romney are essentially tied, the poll shows.

Among non-veterans overall (both men and women), however, Obama holds a four-percentage point advantage, 48%-44%, over his Republican rival.

Neither Romney nor Obama have military records, making the 2012 election the first race with non-veterans as candidates since the 1944 showdown between Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey.

To commemorate the Memorial holiday, Romney will make an appearance today with Sen. John McCain at the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in San Diego, California, while President Barack Obama attends ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.

Gallup pulled its data from its daily tracking survey between April 11 and May 24, with a random sample of 43,352 adults questioned by telephone. Of the sample, 7,133 were veterans. The poll's sampling error is plus or minus two percentage points.


Sources: CNN, Gallup, Youtube