PHOENIX (AP) — DeAnna Mireau reached into a container and fished out a piece of paper.
“The next one is, do we have a drum roll?” she shouted to a room full of about two dozen older adults and half a dozen journalists. ‘Justice! Justice for all.”
No one moved, so Mireau grabbed another piece. Next was “employee empowerment.” Then ‘malarkey’. When she finally shouted “people,” there was a winner.
“Biden Bingo!” a soft voice sounded from the middle of the room. A white-haired man extended his elbow and raised his fist in the air in triumph. The hall filled with applause.
That made 83-year-old Art Winter of Scottsdale, Arizona, the first victor in President Joe Biden’s latest effort to include older voters in his quest for a second term.
Biden is combining campaign props like rallies and phone banks with social events like bingo and pickleball to engage seniors in what is likely to be an extremely close election. Older people are more likely to vote than the average American, and many retirees have the spare time to volunteer to knock on doors or make phone calls.
Seniors also make up an outsized share of the population in several swing states, including Arizona, a popular retirement destination. Biden narrowly defeated former President Donald Trump in 2020, again the presumptive Republican nominee this year, by fewer than 11,000 votes.
“Bingo and Biden — what a winning combination,” Mireau, the game’s host, said after it was over. Some bingo players stuck around to chat or eat the food provided by the campaign.
Mireau was brought in to officiate the game because she lived in Las Vegas for nine years. She is also experienced. She runs the bingo games at her mobile home park in Phoenix.
“People coming together with like-minded people and similar goals, we can generate so much more energy, and it helps us get to the finish line,” said Mireau, who learned about the event through her involvement with the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans. a left-wing group composed largely of retired trade unionists.
For his victory in the “Biden Bingo,” Winter was given a choice of four prizes. His wife made the choice: several books with crossword puzzles.
The game continued. Just a few drawings later, there was another call of “Biden Bingo.” Another triumphant fist in the air. Winter again. This time his wife picked up an envelope containing a mysterious gift card. He set it aside unopened.
“I’ve never won a door prize,” he said to his table, laughing.
The game continued. More pieces of paper from the trash: Election Day. Education. Veterans. Pilot sunglasses. Scranton. Expand Medicare.
Here Mireau intervened. “It will literally save lives, and it could be yours,” she said.
More bits — and more references to Biden’s political persona, some humorous, some serious: Amtrak train. Dr. Jill Biden. American jobs. Working families.
Not one but two bingos were now declared – but not “Biden Bingo” this time. These winners apparently forgot the instruction to announce victory with the president’s name, but no one enforced the rule.
Suddenly out of prizes, but with a bin full of Biden-themed pieces of paper, a campaign worker rushed to get a few more. She returned with a deck of cards and some large print books of word games.
The pieces of paper were taken from excerpts of Biden’s biography and priorities. As a U.S. senator, he famously commuted to the Capitol on the Amtrak train. On clear days he wears aviator-style sunglasses. And he has made ‘malarkey’ a household name.
In the end there was only one piece left.
“Good-paying jobs,” Mireau said, and the room erupted in applause. Everyone had filled their plate.
And now it was time for business. An energetic young man emerged and introduced himself as one of the campaign organizers working out of this Democratic field office in an outdated office building in downtown Phoenix. He handed out his own pieces of paper — volunteer cards — and urged them to help the campaign by knocking on doors and calling other voters.
According to a recent AP-NORC poll, half of adults 65 and older have a very or somewhat positive opinion of Biden. Older adults are more likely to have a positive image of the president than those under 65.
While Biden’s approval has declined during his time in office, there has been less of a decline among those age 65 and older. About half of people 65 and older approved of how Biden was handling his job as president in an AP-NORC poll conducted in March. That’s down slightly from January 2021, when Biden first took office, when about six in 10 adults 65 and older approved of his performance.
Only about a third of those under 65 approved of Biden’s job performance in March, compared to about 6 in 10 in January 2021.
In the 2020 election, Biden and Trump split voters who were 65 or older. Data from AP VoteCast shows that about half of voters aged 65 and older chose Trump and about half chose Biden. Biden won among women and non-white voters aged 65 and older, while Trump won older men and white voters in this age group.
A majority of Americans say they doubt the mental capabilities of 81-year-old Biden and 77-year-old Trump. But what’s a big risk for Biden is that independents are far more likely to say they don’t have confidence in his mental abilities (80%) than Trump’s (56%).
Brenda Clarke, a 75-year-old retiree from Tempe, Arizona, said she gets angry when she hears her friends expressing doubts about Biden’s age and blames the media for fueling the concerns. She said Biden’s supporters should remind people of his achievements.
“It’s up to us to continually confront people if they’re trying to promote that,” Clarke said.
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Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed.
