With the 2024 elections rapidly approaching, Americans are being forced to reckon with an important, albeit uncomfortable question: How old is too old for our elected officials?
This is by no means the first time age has played a role in politics – Ronald Reagan was asked whether at age 73 he was too old to be reelected in 1984 – although rarely have politicians’ ages been front and center the way they are now.
Both frontrunners for each party’s presidential nomination – President Joe Biden (80 years old) and former President Donald Trump (77 years old) – would be the oldest president in our nation’s history – a record Biden already holds, while Trump would occupy both the 3rd and 1st spots on that list should he win next November.
The issue extends to Congress as well. Rep. Nancy Pelosi recently announced that at age 83, she is seeking another term in the House. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is 81 years of age, has now had two separate, very public, health scares in the span of a month, appearing to freeze for more than 30 seconds in front of reporters, yet he remains in his powerful Senate position.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is 90 years old, made headlines earlier this year when she was away from the Capitol for months due to health issues that forced her to miss more than 90 floor votes and held up a number of Biden’s nominees, including judicial appointments to Federal Courts.
Americans are overwhelmingly united in their concerns about the age of our political leaders, and want change. More than three-fourths of Americans (77%) say there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, with a plurality (45%) putting that limit at 70 years old, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey. Support is bipartisan in a way that very few issues are in our current political environment: nearly 8-in-10 (79%) Republican voters and 76% of Democratic voters agreed with instituting age limits.
To be clear, while the median age in the House (58 years old) and the Senate (65 years old) makes the current Congress the oldest in history, the issue is most prominent in the race for the presidency.
Indeed, nearly 8-in-10 (77%) Americans – including 74% of Independents and 69% of Democrats – say Biden is too old to effectively serve another four year term as president, per a recent AP-NORC poll. When asked about Trump, a majority (51%) of adults said the same.
While age is a bigger political vulnerability for Biden than for Trump, the data underscores that at least one-half of Americans feel that either of the two most likely presidential candidates is too old for nation’s highest office. To put these numbers in context, towards the end of his second term in 1987, just 48% of Americans said Reagan – then 11 and 8 years younger than Biden and Trump, respectively, would be at the end of their second terms – was too old to be president.
The administration has begun pushing back on concerns about Biden’s age, as Republicans continue to make it a centerpiece of their campaign, including telling voters that “A vote for Biden is a vote for [Vice President] Kamala Harris,” insinuating that Biden would be unable to finish a second term.
Responding to a CNN article which referenced concerns about Biden’s age and fitness, deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton tweeted, “Here on Earth, we saw the President start his day in India at the G20, end the day in Hanoi with a substantive & detailed 40-minute press conference at 9pm, and continue to answer questions—including from @cnn—as he departed. What will be enough?”
For his part, Biden has attempted to make light of voters’ concerns by suggesting that with age comes the required experience to be president. Earlier this year, he joked at the White House Correspondents Dinner, saying, “I believe in the First Amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” and, “You call me old; I call it being seasoned. You say I’m ancient; I say I’m wise.”
That said, these efforts are unlikely to address what is a growing political liability for the incumbent. The percentage of Americans who say Biden does not have the stamina to effectively serve as president has risen from 51% in November 2019 to 74% in CNN’s most recent tracking poll.
Further, among Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents, Biden’s age was their top concern about Biden as a candidate in 2024 (49%), while his mental competence (7%) and his health (7%) were tied for second.
Even Biden’s admirers have concerns. David Ignatius recently wrote in the Washington Post, imploring Biden not to run due to his age, Harris’ unpopularity with voters, and asking Biden to trust the Democratic process to find a new leader for his party. Ignatius notes that Harris – who he correctly notes would become voters’ focus – is “less popular then Biden,” with just a 39.5% approval rating, per FiveThirtyEight.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, has made instituting age limits a pillar of her campaign, along with calling for a generational change in our political leadership. Another GOP hopeful, Vivek Ramaswamy, consistently reminds voters of his age (38 years), implicitly drawing comparisons to Trump and Biden.
Yet, it is doubtful any meaningful legislation will be forthcoming, or that a generational change will happen anytime soon. Our political system tends to reward incumbents, allowing officials to hold office years after they should have stepped aside.
And, older Americans tend to vote at higher rates than younger Americans, and are less likely to hold a candidate’s age against them. The data bears this out: While nearly 80% of Americans under the age of 40 say the ideal age range for a president is in their 40’s and 50’s, less than half of adults over 60 years old say the same, per Pew Research.
Ultimately, while it remains to be seen how large of a role a candidate’s age plays in 2024, voters are clearly concerned about the age of our elected officials generally, and President Biden specifically. For an issue to have such widespread, bipartisan support is exceedingly rare, and officials in both parties must honestly begin answering the question of how old is too old for public office.
Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.
