Trump's 78. Biden's 81. Are the other candidates that much younger? – USA TODAY
Seven candidates are still in the running for the 2024 presidential election, and with the exception of Chase Oliver, the other six contenders were alive when President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in office, can access a 401(k) without penalty, and are now eligible to collect Social Security.
There’s a minimum age to run for president, but there isn’t a maximum, as evidenced by the past two commanders in chief. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump set the record for the oldest elected president during their respective terms.
The GOP frontrunner celebrated his 78th birthday on Friday. Despite the narrow age difference of three years, he often criticizes Biden, suggesting that the incumbent is unfit to be president because of it.
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Trump’s team continues to make Biden’s age an issue in the campaign, saying the oldest president in U.S. history has exhibited signs of “cognitive decline” while “wandering around” during a photo opportunity at the G7 in Italy, as previously reported by USA TODAY.
Born on Nov. 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden, 81, is currently the oldest U.S. president ever elected. If he wins in November, he’d be 82 by the time he takes office and 86 by the end of his term.
Biden must convince voters that he is more fit for office than Trump, who is just three years his junior, while combating low approval ratings that are worse among younger voters.
During the last State of the Union, the president directly addressed concerns about being older. “When you get to my age, certain things become clearer than ever before,” Biden said.
Best-selling author Marianne Williamson, born July 8, 1952, in Houston, Texas, is 71 and will turn 72 before the general election on Nov. 5. She relaunched her long-shot 2024 presidential bid earlier this year, focusing on “justice and love” less than one month after dropping out.
In a February statement, she said she was getting back in to fight Trump’s “dark and authoritarian vision” after earlier suspending it because she was losing “the horse race,” according to Reuters.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is 70 years old. Born Jan. 17, 1954, in Washington D.C., he is the second-youngest presidential candidate this year. He was initially running for the Democratic nomination but switched to an independent in October 2023.
Kennedy’s campaign confirmed that he was officially on the ballot in a handful of states, including California, Michigan and Utah. But he still faces a challenging and costly battle to be listed in all 50 states.
Cornel West, the political activist, philosopher and academic, is making a third-party bid for president that is most likely to appeal to progressive, Democratic-leaning voters.
West, 71, initially ran as a Green Party candidate but said in October that people “want good policies over partisan politics” and declared himself an independent. He has promised to end poverty and guarantee housing.
Jill Stein, 74, a physician who ran under the Green Party in 2016, is trying again in 2024.
She launched her current campaign accusing Democrats of betraying their promises “for working people, youth and the climate again and again – while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place.”
Stein raised millions of dollars for recounts after Trump’s surprise 2016 victory. Her allegations resulted in only one electoral review in Wisconsin that showed Trump had won.
While the Libertarian Party invited both Trump and Kennedy to speak at their convention in late May, it ultimately selected Chase Oliver, 38. Oliver ran for a Georgia state Senate seat in 2022 and garnered 2% of the vote.
According to the U.S. Constitution, a natural-born U.S. citizen has to be at least 35 years old to run for president. To date, the youngest U.S. president was Theodore Roosevelt at age 42, and the oldest is Joe Biden, who took office at 78 and was the only president to serve in their 80s.
Reuters contributed to the reporting of this story.
Victor Hagan is the Alabama Election Reporting Fellow for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at vhagan@gannett.com or on X @TheVictorHagan. To support his work, subscribe to the Advertiser.