The Constitution defines minimum age requirements for elected offices, and there are no age caps. But if it were up to the American public, older candidates would be ineligible to run.
And while such an age limit would require a constitutional amendment, millennials are trying to bring down the average age on Capitol Hill – even while Congress is getting older.
Recent polling by YouGov and CBS News found that 73 percent of adults believe there should be age limits for elected officials and, in an era of intense polarization, Americans are united in their preference for such a cap, across gender, age group, race and party identification.
However, they disagreed on what that limit should be.
The most popular maximum age for elected officials was 70 years old, preferred by 40 percent of respondents, followed by 60 (26 percent), 80 (18 percent) and 50 (8 percent). The age-70 option was the most popular across every demographic subgroup except one: Those under age 30 had a slight preference for a max age of 60.
The current Congress is the oldest, on average, in recent years, according to Quorum. The average age in the Senate is 64. Members of the House of Representatives are slightly younger, with an average age of 58.
Our two most recent presidents (Joe Biden, 78; Donald Trump, 70) were the oldest in history when they took office, marking a significant change from their predecessors. George W. Bush was 54 at his swearing in, while Barack Obama was 47 and Bill Clinton was 44 (third youngest, after Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy).
Quorum found that the average age has increased at least in part because lawmakers are serving longer terms than in the past. Six senators and three House members have served at least 40 years in Congress, including Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who lead the way in their 48th year.
According to a survey commissioned in early 2021 by U.S. Term Limits, which advocates for service caps on elected officials, 80 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of a constitutional amendment that would put term limits on members of Congress, with Republicans, Democrats and independents all supportive.
And younger generations are not helping to balance the equation, with the 30-39 cohort showing the biggest decrease in representation following the last election.
But it’s not because they aren’t trying.
The Millennial Action Project, which supports young people seeking state and federal office, has been gathering data on millennials running campaigns. MAP tracked 703 millennials who sought a seat in Congress in 2020, a 266 percent increase from 2018.
Data is not yet available on 2022 candidates.
In 2020, 251 millennials (anyone age 45 or younger, according to MAP) made it through to the general election. Among them, 140 were Democrats, 97 were Republicans and the remainder were independents or represented other parties. More of them were men (156) than women (95.)
That election cycle included 56 House incumbents as well as Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents to the YouGov/CBS poll said politics would be better if more young people were in elected office; 23 percent said politics would be worse. Self-identified liberals heavily influenced that question, with 74 percent saying “better” along with 51 percent of moderates and 26 percent of conservatives. The other moderates and conservatives were nearly evenly divided over whether politics would be the same or worse with more young people in office.
A person must be 25 years old to serve in the House, 30 for the Senate and 35 to be president. Roosevelt was 42 when he became president following the assassination of William McKinley.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.