Biden (81 years) Vs. Trump (77 years): The next president’s age now dominates the 2024 election

There are reports of bombings in the following days It is hard to see how the president will get out of this mess and convince voters that he is at his full potential.

Those kinds of mistakes They will be exploited to the max by Republicans and amplified in right-wing media and networks, reinforcing concerns that 75% of registered voters have about the president’s abilities, According to a recent national survey of NBC News.

What’s wrong with voters? A possible alternative candidate for the presidential election is not far away. That’s what the survey suggests 48% are concerned about the age and health of Donald Trump, who, at 77, He is an apparently safe candidate for the Republicans.

An AP poll for Public Affairs Research at the end of 2023 suggests that most voters They would choose the alternatives to Biden and Trump, However, in the end they have to vote for one of the two candidates.

Since she ran in the primaries last year, Haley has proposed that every presidential candidate over the age of 75 take a test to analyze their abilities.

first of all, Her initiative was aimed more at Biden, but as she becomes Trump’s only challenger in the Republican field, she has also included her former boss in the proposal.

However, she is not capitalizing on her relative youth (51 years) and continues to lose primaries to Trump. Even in her state, South Carolina, opinion polls show her well below the former president.

Following his successful re-election in Florida in 2020, DeSantis was expected to be a young conservative to challenge Trump for the nomination. The governor also ran with the former president, but a year later, he withdrew from the race after his failure in the Iowa caucuses.

The idea of ​​a “drama without Trump”, that is, a version of the former president with the same ideological line, but more ‘politically correct’ that DeSantis sold, was not attractive to many, who preferred the ‘original’.

Haley, on the other hand, has tried to distance herself from Trump. But he could not even make a dent in the leadership of the former President.

In the case of the Democrats, The vague rule that the president will seek nominations to the office Despite the issue of age to continue another four years in the White House, that explains Biden’s case.

When it became known in late 2022 that Biden would run for re-election, Alyssa Slotkin, 47, a Democratic representative from Michigan, said she would support him because political history dictated that, but she warned that A “new generation” and “new blood” are needed in power.

That new blood, like California Governor Gavin Newsom, 56, or New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 34, will have to wait until 2028 if they want to run for president.

In 2024, only minor figures challenged Biden: the Minnesota representative, Dean Phillips, 55, or the author, Marion Williamson, 71. The latter dropped out of the race, and although Phillips remains, she has no chance of securing the nomination.

In 2016 and 2020, when Democrats elected figures from Establishment to compete for the party presidency (Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden respectively) The main contender was a figure of ideological rupture, though not generationally: Bernie Sanders.

Sanders, a progressive independent senator, was 74 when he challenged Clinton and generated excitement and interest, especially among young liberal voters, but he never posed a threat to her (or to Biden).

The problem of The lack of generational renewal in American politics is evident in the makeup of Congress, Who is the “oldest in history”.

Number of Senators and Representatives The over-70s in this assembly increased from 5% in the early 80s to 23%, According to a work by Business Insider.

It is paradoxical if you recall that in 1986 the same Congress voted unanimously to end the establishment of mandatory retirement based on age. Until then, companies may be required to retire their workers when they reach the 70-year-old barrier. But the Constitution does not prescribe a maximum age for holding elected office.