Why are American politicians so old?

By now, you’ve probably heard the news that President Joe Biden is old — so old that some Democrats are calling for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But Biden, of course, is not one of the older generation of senior American politicians: His biggest rival, Donald Trump, is 78, and the average age of a U.S. senator is over 65. In fact, the American politician population is getting older, and the United States has been dubbed a “gerontocracy,” a political system in which power is concentrated in the hands of older people.

There’s nothing bad about older people in positions of power: if voters want experienced civil servants to lead the country, those civil servants are likely to be older than the average worker. But the concern is that older people are over-represented in national politics, and that this could produce politicians who are out of touch with many of the challenges facing younger people.

The concerns are compounded when politicians share little information about their health. The late Senator Dianne Feinstein, for example, spent the last few years of her life clinging to her Senate seat as she approached 90 despite serious concerns about her mental health and visible signs of cognitive decline, including memory loss. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 82, appeared to freeze up in public multiple times last year before eventually announcing his intention to resign. More recently, Biden’s missteps and disastrous debate performances have sparked panic about whether the 81-year-old president can even campaign, let alone carry out public duties.

Many Americans have complained that the past few elections have seen a string of older candidates nominated for president, all of whom would be the oldest president in history. (Biden is the oldest president ever, a record that would be broken by Trump’s election victory.)

But one reason voters seem to have so few choices is that one of the main pipelines to the presidency is Congress, and Congress itself is aging. In fact, the current Congress is the oldest in American history.

With so many elderly politicians, there have been many calls for simple solutions, including age limits.

But having so many older politicians is a symptom of deeper problems in our democracy that cannot be solved by simply banning older people from running for office. Democracy is meant to be representative, and an under-representation of young people in parliament can produce a government that is unable to adapt to a changing world.

The best explanation for why America’s elected officials are getting older is simply that the American population as a whole is getting older: The median age in the United States is now 39, up from 30 in 1980, according to the US Census Bureau, and baby boomers are staying in the workforce much longer than previous generations.

While this may explain the aging of elected officials, it doesn’t necessarily explain the cases of people like Feinstein, McConnell and Biden who are serving into their 80s while battling public concerns about their health, or why roughly a quarter of Congress is made up of members over 70.

There are signs of the breakdown of democracy.

Because if voters want to elect an 80-year-old, they should have the right to do so. Having older politicians in power is the result of the democratic process. The reality is, many Americans don’t have much of a choice.

That’s because there are institutional barriers to true competition that, for the most part, allow incumbents to stay in power as long as they want. (After all, Biden served in the Senate for 36 years before becoming vice president in 2009.)

Over the past century, congressional races have become less and less competitive, and in recent years, the majority of House races have been won by margins of 10 points or more. In 2018, for example, just 44 of 435 districts were considered close (meaning they would be decided by 5 points or less), according to the advocacy group Fairvote. In 2022, that number is even lower, with 36 House races considered battleground.

As competition has decreased, the average age of lawmakers has risen: in 1981, for example, the average age of a U.S. senator was 52; in 2022, it will be 65.

There are two main reasons why House elections are less competitive: polarization and gerrymandering. As Americans have become more polarized, they have also become more loyal to political parties — fewer and fewer Americans split their votes, voting for a Democratic candidate for president but also for Republican candidates for the House and Senate — making districts more secure in general elections. And, more importantly, partisan gerrymandering, in which lawmakers draw districts to favor one party, has made competitive elections increasingly rare.

So most congressional elections are essentially decided by primaries — if you win a primary in a district where the Democrats or Republicans are heavily favored, for example, the general election becomes a mere formality — but there’s another obstacle to real competition during primaries that keeps politicians in office longer: incumbency power.

Incumbents tend to have a significant advantage over their opponents for a variety of reasons, including name recognition, party support, and campaign finances. In fact, while we may hear of surprising upsets from time to time, like when then-29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) defeated 20-year-old Congressman Joe Crowley in 2018, it’s very rare for an incumbent to lose a primary. According to the Brookings Institution, only a handful of incumbents lose a primary each election cycle.

Massachusetts is an example of a state where lawmakers famously face little competition: In 2022, none of the state’s incumbent House members faced a challenger in a primary.

The result of this system is that incumbents can hold their seats for decades, or even until they retire, meaning that while voters can theoretically vote for anyone they want, they have little say in who appears on the ballot or whether there are serious alternative candidates to choose from.

American politics is aging by design: From campaign fundraising to rigged district drawing to the insurmountable hurdles that third parties must overcome to get on the ballot, incumbents can essentially stay in office as long as they like.

Polls show that most Americans support imposing age limits on federal officeholders, and there have been several attempts to implement them in recent years. However, while age limits would certainly prevent too many older people from holding public office, they also have a number of problems. First, age limits are discriminatory, barring people from participating in certain aspects of democracy simply because of their characteristics. Also, people do not age uniformly; some people start to show signs of cognitive decline in their 70s, while others remain fully capable of holding public office well into their 80s. Basing age limits on scientific averages of physical and mental health is likely to be relatively arbitrary, especially now that medical care has improved and life expectancies have increased over time.

The second problem with age restrictions is that they don’t address the underlying problem of there being little electoral competition.

That’s why we should focus on making our elections fairer and more competitive. By no longer guaranteeing that incumbents will win elections, we can encourage turnover in Congress and elsewhere, and give younger people a better chance of getting elected. That will create the reality that our elected officials are more representative of their districts.

To get there, lawmakers should focus on democratic reforms that include limiting partisan redistricting, controlling the cost of electing public office, reducing the influence of deep-pocketed donors and improving access to the ballot.

While these technical reforms won’t immediately rejuvenate Congress, and they certainly won’t solve the current crisis of trust facing Biden, they will make it less likely that this era of gerontocracy will return.

It would also give voters the opportunity to choose who they want, whether it be an up-and-coming young person or a retiree looking to get back into the workforce by serving the country in public office.

After all, what voters should have is the right to choose.