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Few US politicians have had as long a career as Hal Rogers. At 88 years old, the Republican will contest the legislative elections, this Tuesday (03/11), in search of his 24th term in the Chamber of Representatives (equivalent to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies).
Rogers has represented Kentucky's 5th congressional district since 1981 and is the longest-serving representative in the House. Rogers was elected on the same night that Ronald Reagan won his first presidential election, with the slogan Let's Make America Great Again, an expression that would be taken up decades later by the current American president, Donald Trump.
In the race for the Republican Party nomination this year, Rogers defeated, among other opponents, a candidate 60 years younger. But the congressman, born in the 1930s, is far from the only American politician to remain active after the age of 80.
Trump himself is 80 years old. His predecessor, Joe Biden, left the US Presidency at 82, the same age as Nancy Pelosi was when she left the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives. Chuck Grassley, 93, remains in the Senate. He began his political career in 1958, even before Alaska and Hawaii became American states.
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The advanced age and health conditions of some of these politicians, however, have generated concern among both Republicans and Democrats, reigniting the debate about the adoption of age limits or the requirement of medical examinations for those holding political positions.
The US is known for its "gerontocracy", a system of government in which power is held by people much older than the majority of the adult population.
At the same time, the country is among the democracies with the lowest proportion of parliamentarians under the age of 45, according to research by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (UIP), an international organization that brings together parliaments from different countries.
But why do so few young people enter politics? Is it very difficult to enter this field and build a successful career?
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A country with no space for young people?
Republican Riley Owen, 27, is one of the few candidates from Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010) to run for a seat in the US Congress in this year's November 3 elections.
Owen is running in a newly created congressional district in Utah where experts and polls say Democrats may have an advantage. Its proposals include paid maternity leave, restrictions on stock trading by parliamentarians and environmental protection measures, issues that could also attract voters from the opposing party, the Democrats.
Upon being confirmed as the Republican candidate for the state's 1st electoral district, Owen took the stage to the sound of We Didn't Start the Fire ("We didn't start the fire", in free translation), by American singer Billy Joel, and argued that his generation needs to help renew the American dream.
For Owen, gerontocracy is "a bipartisan issue."
"We have people who have made politics a career and spend their entire lives in Congress," he said. According to Owen, this is a sign that the political system is not meeting the needs of Americans.
The candidate points to the weight of money in US politics as one of the biggest obstacles. Research indicates that electoral campaign donors tend to prefer candidates who are already in power.
In fact, his opponent, Democrat Ben McAdams, 51, who was once a deputy in the House of Representatives, has so far raised much more resources for his campaign.
By mid-October, McAdams had raised more than US$2.6 million (around R$13.9 million), while Owen had raised US$150,000 (around R$800,000), according to records available on the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) website.
Owen argues that his generation is in a unique position to understand current political issues, such as the challenges posed by technology.
He also disputes the idea that younger candidates necessarily have less experience. As an example, he cites his own career as a military officer and public policy analyst at the White House.
“I think that in politics, as well as in industry, we need what we call disruptive innovation,” he said.
The age of America's top political leaders has been a topic of debate for decades.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan, who, at 73, was the oldest president in US history at the time, responded to questions about his age with a joke about the "youth and inexperience" of his opponent, 56-year-old Walter Mondale.
In the USA, each State also has its own Legislature, made up of a Senate and a House of Representatives, where many politicians begin their careers.
Several of the current members of the US Congress spent years in state politics before running for a seat in the federal Legislature, based in the US capital, Washington D.C..
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The age of members of the American Congress, however, has increased over the decades. According to records from Congress itself, the House of Representatives and the Senate reached their lowest median ages in the early 1980s, when they were 48 and 52 years old, respectively.
At the beginning of the current legislature, the average age of deputies was 58 years old, while that of senators reached 65, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center (US research center). The median age of the American population is 39 years old.
The health and reasoning capacity of the country's oldest politicians also began to receive greater attention. Joe Biden's age has become one of the main topics of debate during his presidency. Trump also faced questions, albeit on a smaller scale.
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, 84, has also been the target of increasingly frequent questions about his health, after spending months away from Congress to receive medical treatment.
Among Democrats, 88-year-old Maxine Waters faces a fight to remain the party's top representative on the influential House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. For some, her age counts against her.
Age versus political priorities
Some of the most vocal critics of so-called gerontocracy are candidates who identify as democratic socialists, whose political positions are further to the left than those defended by the predominant wing of the Democratic Party. These candidates tend to focus their campaigns on the cost of living and other issues that concern millennials (born between 1980 and 1995) and Generation Z. Their supporters also tend to be younger.
The profile of voters, on the other hand, tends to be older, as is that of the elected politicians themselves. Surveys from the Pew Research Center show that the proportion of young people between the ages of 18 and 29 among Americans who do not vote is increasing. In the 2020 elections, this age group represented 25% of those who did not go to the polls, according to the institute. Four years later, the percentage reached 30%.
The Pew Research Center also points out that young people under the age of 30 were underrepresented in the 2024 elections. Although they accounted for 20% of Americans eligible to vote, they were responsible for only 15% of registered votes.
For political activists, these numbers are important because they help explain why certain topics receive less attention in the public debate.
"Yes, it can result in the election of older people. But I think it also greatly influences the issues that are considered important and the issues that politicians feel encouraged to discuss and confront," said Grace Mausser, one of the coordinators of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Mausser participated in the successful campaign of Zohran Mamdani, who last year was elected mayor of New York at the age of 34, becoming the youngest to hold the office since 1892. Mamdani has come to be seen as a rare example of a successful young politician. But for Mausser, his ally, a politician's ideas matter more than his age.
According to her, staying in politics for many years is not necessarily a problem. The difficulty lies in the consequences this can bring.
"You get so used to the language and ideas of traditional politicians that anything different, any new idea, whether it comes from young people or older people, seems absurd."
Mausser cites independent senator Bernie Sanders, 85 years old, as an example of a politician who, despite his long career in the American Congress, knew how to follow changes and defend proposals that won support from different generations.
Young people disillusioned with politics
In the US, older people have a much more favorable opinion of politicians than young people. This generation gap is even greater than in many other countries, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the first half of 2025.
Among Americans ages 18 to 34, 62% said they believe few or none of elected officials are honest. Among people over 50 years old, the percentage was 45%. Of the 25 countries analyzed by the Pew Research Center, only young adults in Greece demonstrated a more negative view of politicians' honesty.
For an expert who studies political participation in the US and Europe, young people's disillusionment helps explain why many don't want to get involved in politics.
According to James Sloam, a researcher at Royal Holloway, at the University of London, in the United Kingdom, the situation is worsened by the rules that establish a minimum age to hold positions in the American Congress. To run for a seat in the Senate, you must be at least 30 years old. For the Chamber of Representatives, the minimum age is 25 years old.
“One thing leads to another,” Sloam said. "If there aren't enough young people participating in politics in general, they won't get to occupy representative positions either."
Sloam added that young people in both the US and UK know that politics is not the only path to exercising power and influence.
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For young people who manage to reach prominent political positions, another question arises: how do they balance their career with family life, especially when they have young children? During the summer in the northern hemisphere, the cases of two young women who held important positions in Washington D.C. reignited the debate about the difficulties of reconciling motherhood with working in politics.
Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 37, who took office at 29, announced that she had begun the egg freezing process.
The same week in August, 29-year-old Karoline Leavitt announced she would leave the Trump administration to spend more time with her family, including her newborn baby. Almost two years earlier, she had become the youngest person in history to serve as White House press secretary.
"I can't be the best mother my two young children deserve and at the same time devote all the time, energy and attention that the role of White House Speaker requires," Leavitt explained.
Few women gave birth while serving in the US Congress. Furthermore, only a few dozen congressmen are mothers of children and adolescents under the age of 18. The federal government, like many employers in the US, does not offer paid parental leave.
The current American Vice President, J.D. Vance, aged 42, one of the youngest in US history, recently acknowledged that having young children could influence his decision to run for President in 2028.
"We have four young children," said Vance, who belongs to the Republican Party.
Dispute between two parties
The US political system, dominated by two parties, is also highlighted as an obstacle to young people's participation in politics.
According to Sloam, a researcher at the University of London, this is because the system offers space for a relatively limited variety of political positions. He cites studies that indicate that young people tend to mobilize more around social movements or campaigns for specific causes than around party politics.
Within the parties themselves, Sloam highlights the example of Mamdani and other left-wing politicians who have managed to attract the support of young people with proposals that move away from the traditional positions of the Democratic Party. He points out, however, that this movement "still happens somewhat sporadically."
The Republican Party has also experienced internal divisions in the last decade, with the emergence of the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, led by Trump. In the 2024 presidential elections, the movement won the support of a significant portion of young men.
According to Sloam, some European democracies show that a political system with greater diversity of parties can encourage young people to participate.
He cites Scandinavian countries as an example, where multi-party systems are more common. In these countries, the parties that make up the government "work with social movements to try to incorporate them into the political system".
When mentioning countries like Norway, Sloam states that there is a mutually reinforcing relationship: the greater the participation of young people in elections and their confidence in the political system, the greater their involvement in politics tends to be.
Perspectives for the future
Some experts argue that certain parliamentarians should be considering retirement. At the same time, they argue that voters should not ignore the qualities that come with age nor confuse aging with loss of capacity.
"Age alone says very little about a person's capabilities," said Tracey Gendron, a professor of gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US, whose research questions the idea that getting older necessarily means losing capabilities.
"A 45-year-old person may be experiencing depression or problems with drug use and not have the necessary cognitive conditions to hold the position," he said.
On the other hand, according to Gendron, "an 85-year-old person can have extraordinary integrity, as well as political discernment and wisdom, and be fully capable of carrying out his duties."
Gendron recognizes that the age composition of the American Congress does not reflect that of the country's population. But, for her, this also shows that there are several other aspects in which the Legislature could become more representative.
"It's curious that we call this gerontocracy and focus the discussion only on age," said Gendron. "When we analyze other aspects of representation, such as gender, sexual orientation, religion and race, we realize that Congress also does not reflect the diversity of the population."
Republican Riley Owen believes he has a chance of winning the election in Utah, despite his opponent having much more campaign resources.
When talking about what motivates him as a Gen Z candidate, he highlights issues such as the role of technology in society, immigration and the cost of living.
"I'm starting to start my own family, looking at the costs and [wondering] how am I going to manage it all?" said Owen.
Asked about possible similarities between his campaign and those of young candidates from the opposite political camp, Owen defends overcoming party divisions.
"I would try to deconstruct that 'us versus them' logic and maybe set it aside a little. [There is a] bipartisan message felt by many Americans on both sides of the political spectrum: that Washington D.C. is not working for them."
Owen shares the view of Grace Mausser, the New York democratic socialist, that voters should not choose a candidate simply because he or she is young. What matters are your ideas.
“For me, what you stand for and who you are fighting for matters much more than the year you were born,” Mausser said.
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