At 88 years old, Republican Hal Rogers is set to run in November’s midterm elections, seeking a historic 24th term representing Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District, a seat he has held continuously since 1981. Rogers, who first won office the same night Ronald Reagan secured his first presidential term, is far from an outlier. A growing number of top U.S. politicians are serving well into their 80s and beyond: former President Donald Trump is 80, ex-President Joe Biden left office at 82, former House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi stepped down at 82, and 93-year-old Chuck Grassley remains an active senator, having entered politics back in 1958 — before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as U.S. states.
This concentration of political power among senior leaders has pushed the question of age in U.S. politics back into the national spotlight, sparking widespread debate across both major political parties over whether mandatory age limits or regular health screenings should be required for elected officials. The U.S. political system is increasingly defined as a gerontocracy: rule by older leaders, who are significantly older than the majority of the adult population. Compounding this trend is data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union that shows the U.S. has one of the lowest shares of lawmakers under 45 among all developed democracies.
Against this backdrop, 27-year-old Republican Riley Owen stands as one of the few Gen Z candidates running for a congressional seat in the November 3 midterm elections. Owen is campaigning in a newly drawn Utah district that analysts favor Democrats, and he has built his platform on issues that typically resonate with younger and independent voters, including paid parental leave, restrictions on stock trading by members of Congress, and urgent action on climate change. After securing the Republican nomination, Owen took the stage to Billy Joel’s *We Didn’t Start the Fire*, arguing that his generation must step up to renew the American Dream.
For Owen, the dominance of senior leaders is a bipartisan problem. “We’ve got people who have become career politicians, and they spend their lives in Congress,” he explains, arguing this entrenched dynamic has created a system that fails to deliver results for ordinary Americans. One of the biggest structural barriers Owen faces is the outsized role of money in U.S. elections. Campaign donors overwhelmingly favor incumbent candidates, and his Democratic rival, 51-year-old former congressman Ben McAdams, had raised more than $2.6 million by mid-October, compared to just $150,000 for Owen, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Owen pushes back against the common critique that younger candidates lack sufficient experience, pointing to his own background as a military officer and former White House policy analyst. He argues that Gen Z candidates bring a unique, necessary perspective on modern policy challenges — particularly those tied to technology — and that U.S. politics needs the “disruptive innovation” that younger candidates can bring.
Age has long been a conversational centerpiece in U.S. politics. Back in 1984, then-73-year-old President Ronald Reagan, at the time the oldest person to hold the office, famously defused concerns about his age by joking about the “youth and inexperience” of his 56-year-old opponent Walter Mondale. Today, the upward trend in congressional age is clear: according to Congressional archives, the lowest median ages for the House and Senate were recorded in the early 1980s, at 48 and 52 respectively. By the start of the current congressional session, Pew Research Center analysis puts the median age at 58 for House members and 65 for senators — far above the 39-year median age of the overall U.S. population.
Recent high-profile health events have amplified public and political scrutiny of older leaders. 84-year-old Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell faced new questions after a lengthy absence from Congress for medical treatment. On the Democratic side, 88-year-old Maxine Waters is facing a leadership challenge for her role as top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, with many observers noting her age as a contributing factor.
Critics of the current gerontocratic dynamic often come from the left of the political spectrum, particularly among democratic socialist candidates, whose policy platforms focused on cost-of-living issues tend to resonate strongly with Millennial and Gen Z voters. A key demographic factor reinforcing the status quo is that voter turnout also skews heavily older. Pew Research data shows the share of non-voters who are young adults (18 to 29 years old) has risen from 25% in 2020 to 30% in 2024. While voters under 30 make up 20% of the eligible voting population, they only cast 15% of all votes in recent elections, meaning their policy priorities are often underrepresented on the legislative agenda.
Grace Mausser, co-chair of the New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, explains that when older voters make up the majority of the electorate, it not only leads to more older candidates winning, it also shifts which issues politicians prioritize. “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,” she says. Mausser worked on the successful 2024 campaign of 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, who became New York City’s youngest mayor since 1892, but she argues that age alone is not the determining factor of good governance. She points to 85-year-old progressive Senator Bernie Sanders as an example of a long-tenured older leader who has consistently pushed for new ideas and resonates across all age groups. She explains that the real problem is not how long someone has served, but whether they remain stuck in the outdated norms of the political establishment and closed to new perspectives.
A 2025 Pew survey underscores just how deep young adult distrust in politicians runs. In the U.S., 62% of 18-34-year-olds believe few or no elected officials are honest, compared to just 45% of adults over 50. Among all 25 countries surveyed, only young adults in Greece held a more pessimistic view of political honesty.
James Sloam, a political scientist from Royal Holloway, University of London who studies political engagement across the U.S. and Europe, argues that this widespread youth disengagement is a core reason for the lack of young representation. Compounding this issue are the minimum age requirements for federal office: candidates must be 25 to serve in the House and 30 to serve in the Senate. Sloam notes that many young people today also see opportunities to wield influence outside of formal elected politics, which reduces their incentive to pursue careers as lawmakers.
For the young people who do break into national politics, structural barriers remain, particularly when it comes to balancing public office with family life. This summer, two high-profile young female politicians sparked new debate about the compatibility of congressional service with parenthood. 37-year-old Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who first took office at 29, announced she had begun the process of freezing her eggs. Just days later, 29-year-old Karoline Leavitt, who became the youngest White House Press Secretary in history two years prior, announced she would leave the Trump administration to focus on raising her young children, explaining that the role demands constant time and energy that would take away from being the parent she wants to be. Very few women have given birth while serving in Congress, and the U.S. federal government does not mandate paid parental leave for lawmakers, leaving many young working parents in politics at a disadvantage. Even 42-year-old Vice President JD Vance, one of the youngest people to hold the office, has acknowledged that raising four young children may impact his decision to run for president in 2028.
The structure of the U.S. two-party system is another widely cited barrier to youth political participation. Sloam explains that the two major parties tend to represent a narrow range of policy views, and young people are often more engaged in issue-based campaigns and social movements than traditional party politics. While there have been exceptions — such as Zohran Mamdani’s progressive challenge outside the Democratic mainstream, and Donald Trump’s MAGA movement energizing young conservative men over the last decade — these breakthroughs remain sporadic. By contrast, Sloam points to multi-party Scandinavian democracies, where political systems are more pluralistic and parties regularly integrate social movements and youth voices into formal politics, creating a cycle of higher youth turnout, greater trust, and more young people running for and winning office.
While many experts agree that incumbent leaders should know when to step aside, they also warn against writing off older politicians purely based on their age. Tracey Gendron, a gerontology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, argues that age alone is a poor predictor of political competency. “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 acknowledges that Congress does not reflect the age diversity of the U.S. population, but notes that a lack of demographic diversity is not unique to age — Congress also underrepresents women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and people of color across the board.
Back in Utah, despite his opponent’s far larger campaign budget, Riley Owen remains optimistic about his chances in the midterm. He says he is energized by the issues that matter most to Gen Z, including the role of technology in public life, immigration reform, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. Like Mausser, Owen agrees that what matters most is a candidate’s ideas, not their age. Echoing a growing cross-partisan sentiment among younger voters, he argues that the broken “us versus them” partisan framework in Washington is not working for most Americans, regardless of their age or political affiliation.