The top three 2020 Democrats vying for the right to challenge President Trump, 73, are septuagenarians. But Elizabeth Warren is the only one so far to avoid concerns about her age.
The Massachusetts senator, 70, has a reputation for racing around the corridors of Congress. Now, she is attracting some vast crowds, including 12,000 in Minneapolis and 15,000 in Seattle. In contrast, front-runner Joe Biden, 76, whose vigor, energy, and health draw continuing questions. On Wednesday night, Biden’s eye filled with blood during a televised debate on climate change. His campaign schedule has been light compared to those of his top Democratic rivals.
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The campaign of Bernie Sanders, who, at 77, would be 83 at the end of a first presidential term, is careful to put out videos of him boxing and playing softball. The U.S. senator for Vermont has also appeared with hip hop stars like Cardi B and Killer Mike in an effort to mitigate his curmudgeonly image.
Asked about the issue of age in June, Sanders replied tetchily: “It is what you stand for. I think age is certainly something that people should look at. They should look at everything. Look at the totality of the person. Do you trust that person? Is that person honest? Do you agree with that person? What is the record of that person? But just say, you know, ‘I’m gonna vote for somebody because they are 35 or 40, and I’m not going to vote for somebody in their 70s,’ I think that’s a pretty superficial answer.”
Warren, however, isn’t even being asked the question. Instead, the former Harvard Law School professor and Wall Street critic bounces around on stage, treating it as if it were a classroom, and stays sometimes hours after her events to pose for “selfies” with any person who wants one. After Warren’s debate in Detroit, programming that itself went for two-and-a-half hours, the mother of two and grandmother of three gave CNN hosts an extended interview.
“Sitting next to her was like sitting next to a battery,” Van Jones said following her appearance. “It just made me feel like a sloth. I’m barely hanging on, and it’s not even — what is it? Midnight,” Anderson Cooper added. “She’s out there doing laps right now,” David Axelrod replied.
[Previous coverage: 2020 candidates are too old, warns Obama’s former doctor: ‘We’re asking for trouble’]
By comparison, Biden’s frequent verbal mistakes and the crotchety manner of Sanders play to stereotypes about age. Both men often shout during speeches and use archaic vocabulary. Biden’s hair is snow white and wispy, while Sanders’s coif is reminiscent of a mad professor. In short, they look their age. Warren, on the other hand, has a clear, soft complexion, has a modulated way of speaking, and, although a grandmother, does not look out of place among people who are in their 40s and 50s.
Warren has taken other measures to appear youthful. Shortly after her December 2018 announcement, Warren recorded an Instagram Live question-and-answer session after cracking a beer open in her kitchen. Months later, she sat for a video spot with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to critique the “Game of Thrones.”
She also benefits from the plain fact that she is significantly younger than Biden and Sanders. For the time being, they provide her political insulation on the age issue.
Politically, age is a double-edged sword. With age, comes experience. But too much experience — Biden was first elected to public office in 1970 and Sanders in 1981 — brings about questions concerning robustness, cognitive function, and the ramifications of a death while in office. A recent poll found that the average ideal age for a presidential candidate was 48, making the likes of Pete Buttigieg, 37, and Tulsi Gabbard, 38, too young, and Warren, Biden, and Sanders more than two decades over the hill.
New Hampshire state Rep. Tim Egan, 55, is a Biden supporter and worked for Jim King before the lawyer bowed out of the 2012 Democratic primary race for the Massachusetts open Senate seat that Warren went on to win. Egan said a candidate’s age was fair game, whether they were “71 or 36,” predicting Warren would reach a point in her campaign where it would “come under scrutiny.”
“I think the important part to look at is whether someone’s had health issues or not, if someone has the physical ability to manage through the campaign trail, and lastly, if they’re thinking about or talking about who their vice president might be,” he said.
He chalked up Warren’s current momentum, in which she has overcome an early stumble in releasing her Native American DNA results, to her charisma and the fact that she’s a woman who offers a unique perspective. But while he’s “glad she can get folks excited,” he harbors doubts over how her liberal agenda will be received should she be selected to contest the general election.
Alma Gonzalez, 61, a Democratic National Committee member from Tampa Bay, Florida, however, hopes that’s not the case. The undecided automatic delegate, who serves as secretary of the DNC’s Hispanic Caucus, doesn’t believe there’s a direct correlation between age and a person’s ability to sit in the Oval Office, as long as they have the stamina for the job.
“Let’s not forget that this country was very, very well served by a president who presided over the office from a wheelchair,” Gonzalez said, referring to former President Franklin Roosevelt. “We cannot expect that the president of the United States be a super human being. I’m looking for a true servant leader who has the capacity, the mental capacity, the intelligence, the drive, the love of this country to face whatever may come.”
“Our current president, for example, his mental capacity has come more and more into question,” she added. “When you look at his mental capacity, why are we not asking, oh, is what’s coming out of that human being because he’s 70-plus or is it just because that is his nature and his character?”
