Since President Joe Biden decided to end his reelection bid on Sunday, former President Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in history at age 78.
The Republican presidential nominee is only a few years younger than 81-year-old President Biden, but their ages have been a hot-button topic since the two previously ran against each other in 2020.
Despite Trump being the second-oldest to ever hold the national office, his campaign and other Republicans have often weaponized President Biden’s age in political jabs.
President Biden and Trump are the only two presidents in U.S. history to start their White House terms above the age of 70. Before President Biden was sworn into office at the age of 78, Trump was the oldest president to take the helm at age 70.
And before those two, the oldest president to be sworn in was former President Ronald Reagan, who took office at 69 years old.
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Even though Vice President Kamala Harris is decades younger at 59 years old, she would not be the youngest to take office if she were chosen as the Democratic nominee for president and then won the election this fall.
John F. Kennedy was the youngest elected president at 43 years old, and Theodore Roosevelt still has the title of the youngest president to be in office at 42 after he took over when William McKinley died.
The median age for U.S. presidents is 55 years old, while the average age for global leaders is 62, according to the Pew Research Center.
Scrutiny of President Biden’s age and competency is partly what led to the calls for him to drop out of the race. The president had been trying to reignite faith in him as the potential Democratic presidential candidate after his first debate against Trump at the end of June was riddled with stumbles and ultimately disastrous for his reelection campaign.
Elected party leaders called for him to back out of the presidential race shortly after the debate. Initially, President Biden said he would see the race to the end and urged the Democratic party to stick beside him.
However, he made the announcement he would officially end his reelection campaign on Sunday and subsequently endorsed Harris for the position.
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Prior to the debate fallout, the Biden administration had dealt with other criticism in connection to his age after a special counsel's report investigating his possession of classified documents released earlier this year had described his memory as “hazy” and “poor.”
President Biden fought back at the report’s claims, with his doctor stating in a memo he was “fit for duty.”
An Ipsos poll from earlier this year found that 59% of Americans think both President Biden and former President Trump are too old to serve another term, even if recent research shows cognitive skills, like those needed to run a nation, may actually improve with age.
According to a poll by Pew Research, respondents said someone in their 50s is the best age to be president.
