The real reasons US politicians are getting older

Few US politicians have lasted as long as Hal Rogers, who will head into November’s midterm elections in pursuit of a 24th term in the House of Representatives.

The 88-year-old Republican has represented Kentucky’s 5th congressional district since 1981, making him the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives. He won election on the same night Ronald Reagan secured his first presidential term with the slogan "Let's make America great again", a phrase later taken up again by Donald Trump.

Among the candidates Rogers defeated to secure this year’s nomination was one 60 years younger than him. But Rogers, who was born in the 1930s, is far from the only senior US politician to remain in office into their 80s.

Others include US President Donald Trump, 80; Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, who left office at 82; and Nancy Pelosi, who stepped down as the Democratic leader in the House at the same age. Chuck Grassley, 93, is still serving as a senator. He entered politics in 1958, before Alaska and Hawaii had even become US states.

Still, the age and health of some politicians has prompted broad concern in both Republican and Democratic circles, reviving debate over whether age limits or health checks should be introduced.

The US is widely known for its "gerontocracy", a system governed by people who are much older than most adults in the country.

At the other end of the age range, the US has one of the smallest shares of lawmakers under 45 among comparable democracies, according to research from the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

So why are so few young people entering politics? And for those who do, can they succeed?

Twenty-seven-year-old Republican Riley Owen is one of the few Gen Z candidates - people in their early teens to late 20s - from either party running for Congress on 3 November.

Owen is campaigning in a newly created district in Utah that experts say could lean Democratic. He has promoted issues such as paid maternity leave, limits on congressional stock trading and environmental action - all positions that may appeal to Democratic voters.

When he was confirmed as his party’s candidate in the state’s 1st congressional district, he walked on stage to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and said his generation needed to help renew the American Dream.

The gerontocracy is "a bipartisan issue", he says. "We've got people who have become career politicians, and they spend their lives in Congress." In his view, that reflects a system that is failing Americans.

Owen says the biggest obstacle he faces is that money carries enormous weight in US politics. Research suggests campaign donors usually prefer incumbent candidates.

Indeed, his opponent Ben McAdams - a 51-year-old Democrat who has previously served in Congress - has raised far more money so far. By mid-October, McAdams had collected more than $2.6m (£1.9m), compared with $150,000 raised by Owen, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Owen argues that his generation is especially well placed to understand modern political issues, including the challenges created by technology. He also rejects the idea that a younger candidate automatically lacks experience, pointing to his own background as a military officer and a White House policy analyst. "I think in politics, just like in industry, we need what's called disruptive innovation," he says.

The age of America’s leading politicians has long been a subject of discussion. In 1984 Reagan - then the oldest US president at 73 - brushed off criticism with a joke about the "youth and inexperience" of his opponent Walter Mondale, who was a lively 56.

In the US, states also have their own legislatures, with a Senate and a House, where many politicians begin their careers. Many current members of Congress spent years in state politics before seeking a seat in Washington.

But the median age of Congress members has risen over time. Congressional records show that the lowest median ages in the House and Senate were both recorded in the early 1980s - 48 and 52 respectively.

According to analysis by the Pew Research Center, the average age of a House member at the start of the current Congress was 58, while the average age of a senator was 65. The median age of a US citizen is 39.

There is now also greater attention on the health and sharpness of some of the country’s oldest politicians. Joe Biden’s age became a major issue while he was in office. To a lesser degree, Trump has also faced questions.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, 84, has also come under increasing scrutiny after a months-long absence from Congress while receiving medical treatment. On the Democratic side, Maxine Waters, 88, is facing a leadership challenge as the top Democrat on the influential House Financial Services Committee, with some viewing her age as a factor against her.

Some of the loudest critics of this so-called gerontocracy are candidates who identify as democratic socialists, meaning their views are further left than the Democratic Party mainstream. These candidates often campaign strongly on the cost of living and other issues that resonate with Millennials and Gen Z, and their supporters are younger too.

The age profile of voters also tends to skew older, much like that of elected officials. Pew research shows that the share of non-voters who are young, aged 18 to 29, has been rising. In the 2020 US election, 25% of non-voters were in that age group. Four years later, the figure had climbed to 30%.

Pew also says voters under 30 were underrepresented in 2024. People in that age bracket made up 20% of the voting-eligible population, but accounted for only 15% of all votes cast.

Campaigners say these demographic shifts matter because they leave some issues underrepresented.

"Yes, that might result in older people being elected, but I think it really skews, too, what issues are important; what issues politicians are incentivised to talk about and to take care of," says Grace Mausser, co-chair of the New York City wing of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Mausser campaigned for Zohran Mamdani in his successful bid last year to become, at 34, New York City’s youngest mayor since 1892. Mamdani was presented as a rare example of youthful success, but Mausser is less focused on a politician’s age than on their outlook.

She says it is not necessarily a problem if someone has spent a long time in politics. The issue, she argues, is what that can produce: "You become so used to the language and the ideas of the political establishment that anything else - any new ideas, whether they come from young people or old people - seem crazy."

She points to left-wing Democratic senator Bernie Sanders, 85, as an example of an older politician with a long career on Capitol Hill who has embraced change and put forward ideas that have appealed across generations.

In the US, older people view politicians far more favorably than younger people - even more so than in many other countries, according to a Pew survey from spring 2025. Some 62% of 18-34-year-olds were likely to say few or none of their elected officials are honest, compared with 45% of people over 50. Of the 25 countries surveyed by Pew, only young adults in Greece were more pessimistic about politicians’ honesty.

For one expert who studies political engagement on both sides of the Atlantic, young people’s disillusionment helps explain why they are reluctant to take part in politics. The problem is worsened by the fact that Congress has minimum age requirements, he says. Candidates must be 30 to serve as a senator and 25 to serve as a representative.

"The one leads to another," says James Sloam of Royal Holloway, University of London. "If you don't have enough young people engaged in politics generally, then they won't become representatives."

What’s more, Sloam says, young people in both the US and the UK recognize that power does not exist only in politics. They know there are many other fields where they can exert influence - including over elected officials.

Young voters tend to be less engaged than their older counterparts

For young people who do reach prominent political roles, another question is whether they can succeed, especially when it comes to parenthood. Over the summer, the experiences of two high-profile young women in Washington raised fresh questions about whether the job is compatible with motherhood.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 37, a Democratic congresswoman who took office at 29, said she had begun the process of freezing her eggs.

Later that same week in August, Karoline Leavitt, 29, who had been named the youngest White House press secretary nearly two years earlier, said she would leave the Trump administration to spend more time with her family, including her newborn baby. She said: "I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy and attention required of [being] the White House press secretary."

Only a handful of women have given birth while serving in Congress, while a few dozen lawmakers are mothers of children under 18. The federal government, like many US employers, does not provide paid parental leave.

JD Vance, 42, one of the youngest vice-presidents in US history, recently said that having young children could affect his own decision to run for the White House in 2028, saying: "We've got four little kids."

America’s two-party system is also seen as another obstacle to young people becoming involved in politics.

Sloam says this is because only a relatively narrow set of views is represented. He points to research suggesting that young people are more energized by social movements or issue-based campaigns than by party politics.

And within party politics, he notes the example of Mamdani and others on the political left who appear to be mobilizing youth support outside the Democratic Party mainstream. But he warns that "it's a little bit sporadic at the moment".

The Republican Party has also experienced its own divisions over the past decade with the rise of Trump’s MAGA movement, which attracted many young men in the 2024 presidential election.

Some European democracies show that a more pluralistic political environment can boost youth engagement, Sloam says. Scandinavian countries, for example, which are more likely to have multiple parties, offer a clear contrast because the governing parties there "work with those social movements to try and bring them into the political systems". Referring to countries such as Norway, Sloam suggests there is a cycle in which stronger youth turnout and greater youth trust in the political system lead to more political involvement.

Some experts argue that while certain lawmakers should know when to step aside, voters should also not overlook the strengths that come with age. Nor should they confuse age with competence.

"Age alone is a very poor predictor of anything," says Tracey Gendron, a professor of gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University whose research challenges the assumption that ageing always means decline.

"You can have a 45-year-old who is experiencing depression or substance abuse who may not have the cognition necessary for the job," she says. And equally: "You can have an 85-year-old with incredible integrity and political judgement and wisdom who is fully capable of doing the job."

Gendron accepts that US politicians do not reflect the country’s age profile, but says that simply shows Congress could be more diverse in many ways.

"It's funny when we call it a gerontocracy and we focus just on age alone," she says. "When you look at most other aspects of representation - gender, sexuality, religion, race - we're not representative there either."

Owen, the Republican, believes he has a strong chance in Utah despite his opponent’s much larger war chest.

Talking about what drives him as a Gen Z candidate, he points to issues including technology’s role in public life, immigration and cost-of-living pressures. "I'm on the front end of starting my own family and looking at the costs and [asking] how am I going to make it work?" he says.

When asked whether he sees similarities between his campaign and those of young candidates on the other side of the political divide, he says: "I'd break down the 'us versus them' framework, and maybe discard that a little bit… [there is] a bipartisan message that a lot of Americans on both sides of the aisle are feeling: that Washington isn't working for them."

He shares Mausser’s view, the New York democratic socialist says, that voters should not choose a candidate simply because they are young: what matters is their ideas.

"For me, it's much more about what you support, what you're who you're fighting for, than what year you were born," she says.