WASHINGTON — Democrats have glimpsed their biggest threat this fall, and she is Grandma. One reason President Barack Obama and other party leaders are rolling out campaigns to energize young and minority voters for November’s elections is that they’ve seen the polling data on senior citizens, and it’s ugly. Democrats once counted on voters older than 65, but many seniors’ loyalties changed in the past decade. That’s partly because of the parties’ stands on policy such as fiscal and personal responsibility, and partly, experts said, because the demographic changed. Many of today’s seniors started voting in the 1950s, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president. The number of people whom FDR converted to Democrats in the ’30s is shrinking fast. A majority of seniors backed Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona over Obama in 2008. The seniors’ current tilt toward Republicans is being reinforced by Obama’s biggest accomplishment as president: the health care overhaul. A George Washington University Battleground Poll in April found that only 36 percent of likely voters who were 65 and older approved of the health care law, which expands and mandates health insurance coverage. That was the lowest approval rating of any voter age group. For November’s congressional elections, the poll found that seniors are far more inclined to vote for Republicans than for Democrats, by 48 percent to 33 percent. “Other than enthusiasm of our base, it’s probably the biggest problem we face,” said Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster partner of the bipartisan poll.

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