Why America's Politicians Keep Getting Older, and Why Young Candidates Struggle to Break In

Hal Rogers will go into the November midterms asking Kentucky's 5th district for a 24th term in the House of Representatives. He is 88 and has held the seat since 1981, which makes him the longest-serving member of the House. He was first elected on the night Ronald Reagan won his first presidential term. Among the challengers he beat for this year's Republican nomination was one 60 years younger than he is.

Rogers is not alone among the old at the top of American politics. President Donald Trump is 80. Joe Biden left office at 82, and Nancy Pelosi stepped down as the Democratic leader in the House at the same age. Senator Chuck Grassley is 93 and entered politics in 1958, before Alaska and Hawaii were states. Concern about age and health has spread through both parties, reviving talk of age limits and health checks. Mitch McConnell, 84, has faced questions with increasing regularity after a months-long absence for medical treatment. Maxine Waters, 88, faces a leadership challenge as the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, and some see her age as a factor against her.

The other end of the spectrum is thin. Research from the Inter-Parliamentary Union shows the US has one of the lowest shares of lawmakers under 45 among comparable democracies. Congressional records put the lowest median ages in the House and Senate in the early 1980s, at 48 and 52. Pew found that at the start of the current Congress the average House member was 58 and the average senator 65, while the median American is 39.

Riley Owen, 27, is one of the few Gen Z candidates from either party running for Congress on 3 November. A Republican, he is contesting Utah's newly created 1st district, which experts say may lean Democratic. He campaigns on paid maternity leave, limits on congressional stock trading and environmental action. When he was confirmed as his party's candidate he walked on stage to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire. He calls the gerontocracy a bipartisan problem, with career politicians spending their lives in Congress. He cites his background as a military officer and White House policy analyst against any suggestion that he lacks experience.

Money is his main obstacle, since research suggests donors favour incumbents. His rival, Democrat Ben McAdams, 51, a former member of Congress, had raised over $2.6m by mid-October, according to Federal Election Commission records. Owen had raised $150,000.

Voting patterns compound the imbalance. Pew says 25% of non-voters in 2020 were aged 18 to 29, rising to 30% four years later. In 2024, under-30s were 20% of the voting-eligible population but cast only 15% of the votes. Grace Mausser, co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, says this skews which issues politicians are motivated to address. She campaigned for Zohran Mamdani, who won New York's mayoralty last year at 34, its youngest mayor since 1892. She cares less about age than outlook, and points to Bernie Sanders, 85, as an older figure whose ideas resonate across generations.

Disaffection runs deep. A Pew survey from spring 2025 found 62% of 18-34-year-olds said few or none of their elected officials are honest, against 45% of those over 50. Among 25 countries, only Greece's young adults were gloomier. James Sloam of Royal Holloway, University of London, says too little youth engagement means too few young representatives, a problem worsened by minimum ages of 30 for senators and 25 for House members. He adds that young people know power also lies outside politics, and that the two-party system narrows the range of views on offer. Scandinavian multi-party systems, he says, work with social movements and sustain youth trust. He calls the energy around Mamdani and others on the left "a little bit sporadic".

Parenthood is another barrier. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 37, announced this summer that she had begun freezing her eggs. In August, Karoline Leavitt, 29, the youngest White House press secretary ever, said she would leave to spend time with her family, including a newborn. Only a handful of women have given birth while in Congress, and the federal government offers no paid parental leave. JD Vance, 42, has said his four young children may affect a 2028 run.

Some experts caution against equating age with decline. Tracey Gendron, a gerontology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, says age alone is a very poor predictor of anything. The midterms on 3 November will show whether voters reward youth or experience.