D.T. Carson
With age being a nagging issue for both of the frontrunners in the presidential race—Joe Biden, 80, and Donald Trump,79—the Pew Research Center asked Americans what they felt was the best age for those wishing to lead the most powerful nation in the world.
According to the results of the survey of over 5,000 adults conducted between June 5 through June 11, most Americans (49%) felt that the ideal age of a president would be someone in their 50’s.
24% felt that someone in their 60s would be ideal while just 17% felt that the 40-49 would be the best age range for the president. Just 3% of those surveyed preferred a president in their seventies.
As expected, younger adults favored younger candidates, while older adults preferred a president in their sixties or older.
The ideal age may be one of the few things both Democrats and Republicans agreed on, with Republicans favoring candidates who were on the younger side.
The youngest president ever elected as president was John F. Kennedy, who was 43 when he won his White House bid. But Kennedy wasn’t the youngest to ascend to the presidency. Instead, it was Theodore Roosevelt who was 42 when he succeeded to the office after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. Both Bill Clinton and Ulysses Grant were 46 when they became president. Barack Obama was 47.
In fact, before Trump’s 2020 win at 70 years of age, Ronald Reagan held the record as the oldest to be elected president at the ripe old age of 69.
Just one quarter (11) of those who’ve ever served as U.S. president were over the age of 60. Nine presidents were in their forties, while the majority (25) of those who’ve been elected to the office did so in their fifties.