Voters say they favour age limits for elected officials
middle age, seems sure to be absent from the presidential ballot when Americans vote in November 2024. Joe Biden, theyet, is 80; his likely rival, Donald Trump, is 77. Both are well past the median age for the world’s heads of government, which is just 62. Only eight of the 187 leaders in an analysis by the Pew Research Centre are older than Mr Biden . Both Americans are also much older than most of their predecessors: the median age of presidential nominees and presidents since 1900 is 55.5.
They would be less out of place in Congress. For many years, America’s lawmakers have been getting less youthful . In 1900 people in their 40s made up 38% of the House and Senate. Now they account for just 20%. This could in part be explained by changes in life expectancy in America , but structural factors, such as incumbency advantage and party leaders’ bias towards recruiting established politicians as candidates, favour older people.
In midterm elections in 2022 the Senate continued to get older. But the median age in the House of Representatives edged down from 58.9 to 57.9. Now four senators and 11 House members are in their 80s, down from seven and 14 before the midterms. The proportion of Congress’s members older than 70 fell from almost a quarter to less than a fifth. That is partly because 64% of newly elected members were under 40.
Does the ageing of Congress matter? Some would say experience brings wisdom; others worry that Washington’sis slow-moving and backward-looking. Some of the oldest senators, including Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican minority, and Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, have looked infirm in public. Polls show that nearly three-quarters of Americans favour an age limit for elected officials; 77% think Mr Biden is too old to serve effectively.
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