When the then 70-year-old Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, many pondered whether he was too old for the job. Such concerns didn’t stop the 78-year-old Joe Biden from succeeding him 5 years later.
Such maturity is not confined to the presidents, with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi 82 and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell 80. Research from CU Boulder suggests that not only is this a wider trend, but that voters seem to be generally okay with it.
Older politicians
The researchers quizzed voters from across the country and found that while historically younger voters would typically favor young politicians, this doesn’t appear to be the case anymore. The analysis consisted of the Cooperative Election Studies survey that was conducted between 2006 and 2020. The survey tracks the attitudes of voters in each Congressional district.
After the researchers controlled for various factors, such as political ideology and incumbency, the data showed that younger voters do have something of an aversion to older members of Congress. For instance, 18-year-old voters would have a 60% approval rating of a 30-year-old representative, but this would fall to 54% when representatives reach 80.
“Older members of Congress tend to see more punishment,” the researchers explain. “People are less likely to say, ‘Hey, I like how they’re doing.'”
In a second study, however, the team presented participants with a vignette describing a candidate running for a state legislature seat. In some of the vignettes, the candidate was 23, in others they were 50, and others they were 77. In this experiment, they seemed to have no preference and provided equal levels of support.
Polarization
The researchers suggest that this might be due to political polarization, as the major parties are so concerned about losing any election they contest that they throw resources behind each candidate regardless of their age.
“Elections are becoming higher stakes,” the authors explain. “You see both parties sending email messages declaring, ‘This is the most important election of your lifetime.’ They’ve been saying that for every election for at least the last decade.”
