Credit: White HouseWASHINGTON – If he makes it back to the White House and serves a full four-year term, Republican Donald Trump would leave the presidency at 82 years old, one year older than Joe Biden, the building’s current occupant.
Before Biden withdrew from the presidential race, his age had become a campaign liability. But now that Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, is the Democrats’ nominee, it is the 78-year-old Trump who has suddenly become the old man in the race.
The age question dogged both Trump and Biden – they squabbled over their fitness for office during their June debate – but it has never been a top-level issue for voters, polling experts said.
“For certain, Biden put a face on it,” Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, Pa., said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “It’s never been an issue that Americans are particularly invested in.”
Across party affiliation, U.S. voters broadly like the idea of setting age limits for the American presidency, members of Congress and Supreme Court judges, but how many years a candidate has spent on Earth is not high on the list of either Republican and Democratic voters’ priorities.
In a survey of 2,266 U.S. adult citizens that YouGov, an online data and analytics firm, conducted in late July found “leadership skills,” “decision-making abilities,” “honesty,” “mental health” and “vision for the country’s future” to the top five most important traits Americans want in a president.
Age? No. 26 out of 40 traits on the list, behind “personal charisma” and ahead of “sense of humor.”
Just 21% of Americans think age is a “very important” factor in a president, YouGov found. Those numbers change between Republicans (16%) and Democrats (25%).
Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, said the public scrutinizes candidates’ ages to determine if they’re fit for office.
“It’s a cutoff question,” Murray said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “It’s whether the candidate is up to the job or not,” he said. “If the 40-year-old and the 70-year-old are equally capable of doing the job, then age is no longer a factor.”
While age is not a driving focus for the public, seniors were backing Biden, before he withdrew, more than other age groups, Murray said. “It was older voters who were sticking with him.”
In August 2020, when the Pew Research Center asked registered voters, in an “open-ended question,” if they had any potential concerns, about a third of Biden supporters cited his age or health. During his first year in office, 53% of voters described Biden as “mentally sharp,” according to Pew data. Last month, that number had fallen to 24%.
Despite his similar age, Trump, who often meanders in speeches and talks about fictitious people, like film cannibal Hannibal Lecter, as if they are real, saw his numbers for the same question rise – from 50% in 2020 to 58% this year.
The Constitution sets the minimum age requirement for president at 35 and minimum ages for members of Congress at 30 for the Senate and 25 for the House. It sets no age maximums to hold those offices – something that has appeal nationwide.
Age limits get support
Eighty-two percent of Republicans and 76% of Democrats support age limits for members of Congress, Pew found in a separate survey, completed last year, though researchers did not specify a specific age cutoff. Pew also found broad support from Democrats (82%) and Republicans (68%) for placing age limits on Supreme Court justices.
Setting age ceilings would likely mean amending the Constitution, which calls for two-thirds support in the House and Senate and ratification by three-quarters of states.
“There is generally some type of support for age restrictions on elected officials,” Borick said.
Voters, however, routinely incumbent politicians — some of the most famous members of Congress including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (84), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (82), Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders (82) – well into 70s and 80s.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-9th), 87, is running for his 15th term and will likely glide to victory on Election Day, though he had a recent health scare and was hospitalized.
Older lawmakers steadily hold their seats due to the powers of incumbency, Murray said. “That’s less about age than calcification.”
With incumbency comes name recognition, campaign cash and political connections.
The re-election rate of House members from 1964 through 2022 has not dropped below 85%, according to data OpenSecrets, an independent watchdog group that tracks money in politics, compiled.
For Senate incumbents, the numbers are lower, but still strong. Outside three cycles – 1976, 1978 and 1980 – reelection rates are 71% or higher over the same period.
“We reelect incumbents at enormous rates of success,” Borick said, adding that voters often may back an older candidate and support age limits. “People don’t make the connection of their individual choice related to broader connections.”
When Ronald Reagan ran for a second term in 1984, he was 73. At the time, he was the oldest president in U.S. history. Reagan deflected on the topic, with success.
“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” he said in a memorable debate line against his Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale.
With a robust economy at his back, Reagan, cruised in November 1984, winning 525 electoral votes and 58.8% of the popular vote.
How pollsters ask questions matters
To understand public desires about political candidates’ ages, it’s important to ask questions that don’t lead voters to answer in a certain way, Murray said.
Citing polling Monmouth conducted in 2008 about former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who was running for reelection and would turn 84 during the campaign, Murray said two similar but distinct questions his group asked about the sitting senator drew different replies.
Asked if Lautenberg was too old, 31% of registered voters said yes. Asked if someone 84 is “probably too old to be an effective senator,” 46% said yes.
“How pollsters present their findings has as much, if not more, of an impact on the public debate as the questions and results themselves,” Murray wrote in a paper that discussed the Lautenberg questions.
Because the president deals with grave topics that require direct responses, people may worry more about an older president than older members of Congress, Borick said.
“I think that’s woven into it,” he said. “The presidency may be unique in this case,” he said. “That the underlying expectation of vitality and strength and energy all are part of the broader image of the office.”
When the president doesn’t show the public a vigorous image, that can spell political trouble, he said. “When a president doesn’t display that, because of their age and physical presence, it hits a nerve.”
Though age put the former Biden campaign on the defensive, Borick doubts it will resonate for years to come. “Will it be something that people really get worked up over the long term? I’m skeptical that it will.”
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