Revealed: How the Democrats' age problem goes far beyond Biden

Telegraph

11-07-2025

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set her sights on becoming the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, the old guard quickly coalesced around her opponent.
Gerry Connolly, a then 74-year-old eight-term Virginia congressman who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, had powerful allies. Among them was former speaker Nancy Pelosi, 85, who reportedly made calls on his behalf.
The old guard prevailed. Mr Connolly beat his 35-year-old challenger with 131 votes to 84. Speaking after his victory he said his colleagues had been looking for 'somebody capable, irrespective of how old they are'.
Five months later he stepped down from the role, saying his oesophageal cancer had returned.
He passed away just weeks later, aged 75. He was the third sitting Democrat to die this year.
David Cohen, political science professor at the University of Akron said the oversight committee race was a 'beautiful example of the Democratic party House leadership being completely out of touch'.
' Ocasio Cortez is an excellent spokesperson and somebody that's young, energetic... she seemed like the perfect person to pick to chair that committee, and yet they went with the person that was very sick and who later died,' he said.
Had the Democrats gained a narrow House majority in 2024, they would have lost it anyway through their politicians dying within the first few months of the congressional term.
While the issue of ageing political leaders is not unique to the Democrats – Donald Trump is the oldest president elected in US history – it is one that is causing increased tensions.
Joe Biden's public decline saw the octogenarian drop out of the presidential race following his devastating debate performance. In May, it was revealed that he was suffering from prostate cancer.
The diagnosis, which coincided with a tell-all book detailing an alleged cover-up at the White House of the ailing president's cognitive decline, sparked a flurry of conspiracy theories that Mr Biden may have been seriously unwell during his presidency.
The public fiasco has left the Democrats, already grappling with a ' gerontocracy ' showing no signs of stepping aside to make way for younger talent, smarting over its handling of its ageing heavyweights.
Of the 20 oldest House members elected in 2024, 16 were Democrats. Nine of the 14 Senators aged 75 or over at the start of Congress were also Democrats.
More than half of the House Democrats who are 75 or older told Axios they planned to run again in 2026, including Maxine Waters, 86, and Rosa DeLauro, who is 82.
Politico recounted multiple reports of Eleanor Holmes Norton, 87, the oldest House member, and a Democrat telling journalists she will be running for another term in 2026, only for her office to say that is not the case.
Of the 41 sitting Congress members who have died of natural causes since 2000, two thirds were Democrats.
The votes of the three Democrats who died this year, Mr Connolly, Sylvester Turner, 70, and Raúl Grijalva, 77, could have stopped Mr Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' scraping through its first vote in May at 214 to 215.
'It's complete and total political malpractice of the Democratic Party to essentially support and allow these folks to run for re-election when they were so old and infirm and in some cases, terminally ill, knowing... that the numbers were so close between the two parties,' Mr Cohen told The Telegraph.
'I think the Republicans have done a better job at embracing some of their younger members, whereas Democrats seem to have a very seniority based view of how things should proceed,' he said.
Republicans are no strangers to the ageing politician, however. In 2023, concerns were raised about Mitch McConnell's fitness to serve after he appeared to freeze twice in front of reporters within several weeks.
The then 81-year-old stared blankly in silence after reporters asked him questions at separate press conferences. He later resigned.
Last year it was revealed Kay Granger, 82, a Republican congresswoman from Texas, had been struggling with memory issues and living in a senior-living facility towards the end of her tenure in office.
But there are several underlying issues at play that make age more of an issue for Democrats.
If an incumbent decides to run for re-election, especially in safe Democrat seats, their chances being defeated are low.
House Republicans also have term limits for top committee posts, which forces them to move into new roles every six years.
'That's the best time for them to go into the lobby, if that's what they're going to do. Otherwise, maybe go be with their grandkids, but they can't just stay forever as a leader of a committee until they literally die in office,' Gregory Koger, political science professor at the University of Miami, told The Telegraph.
Democrats don't have limits. This means they can stay in plum roles as long as they continue to win elections.
After facing calls to resign from fellow Democrats, in 2023 Dianne Feinstein, a California senator, temporarily stepped down from her role as the ranking member of the judiciary committee. She died five months later, aged 90.
After the Republicans were beaten in the 2008 election, the party 'melted down' and the anti-incumbency Tea Party movement ascended, Mr Koger said.
The Democratic party could now see their own version of this rebellion, he added, but they may not have the strengths the Republican movement capitalised on in 2010.
'We could definitely see candidates rising up, challenging incumbents, but it's not clear if there will be organisational backing, if they'll have enough funding, if they'll get professional consultants to help them out,' Mr Koger said.
The wheels appear to already be in motion, with a raft of next-generation Democrats launching campaigns to challenge ageing incumbents.
Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a former chief of staff for Ms Ocasio-Cortez, has already said he will challenge Ms Pelosi in the primary, although the California Democrat has not confirmed whether she will seek re-election in 2026.
Zohran Mamdani, 33, is also being hailed as a potential saviour for the party after winning the Democratic nomination for the New York mayoral election last month.
'I think everyone's running their own race for different reasons, but they're all kind of running against those long term incumbents who aren't serving the district anymore, and that's kind of the single thread', said Jake Rakov, who has launched a campaign to unseat his former boss Brad Sherman, a 70-year-old California congressman.
'He just does not have, to me, the credentials to say 'I've been here 30 years, keep sending me back', because what can you show for it?', Mr Rakov told The Telegraph.
Mr Rakov has pledged to cap his service at five terms, 10 years in Congress, saying he does not believe in 'lifelong appointment'. The cap 'keeps a lid on our talent bench,' he argues.
'We've had three [congressmen] die since January... We've lost votes in the House... Obviously, if we had people who could stay in office and not pass away, we would have possibly changed that calculus a lot,' he said.
He added: 'Our party has had such a problem, I think with that by default incumbency protection, that if you're the incumbent no one else should be allowed to challenge you and I think Republicans did a better job of understanding and supporting primary challenges.'
Mr Rakov's campaign came after David Hogg, 25, the former vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) vowed to unseat 'asleep-at-the-wheel' Democrats.
Mr Hogg was ousted from his position after pledging to spend $20 million (£15 million) in Democratic primaries to topple 'asleep at the wheel' incumbents.
A source close to Leaders We Deserve told The Telegraph: 'The tactics that make you successful right now in 2025 are quite different from the tactics that would make you successful in the early 90s.'
Noting that the Democrats had lost critical votes owing to people dying in office, he added: 'It's just we very much can see what happens when people keep hanging on and refuse to recognise when it's their time to step aside totally.'
Michael Binder, a political science professor at the University of North Florida said 'every single race matters' when the House margins are so thin.
There are only a couple of dozen competitive races and older politicians tend to already be in a safe Democrat seat.
'But if somebody dies at the last minute and that leaves an open seat where somebody doesn't have the name recognition to and the incumbency advantage, it could cost them [the Democrats] a seat they don't expect it could be really meaningful,' he said.