Age has become a key issue of the 2024 presidential race, with the two front-runners being among the oldest major party candidates in history. President Joe Biden, 81, is seeking reelection as the oldest president in U.S. history.
Republicans, despite likely running former President Donald Trump, 77, have focused on Biden’s age as an issue, citing repeated gaffes and special counsel Robert Hur’s report that noted the president’s alleged memory problems. Democrats have cried foul on the attacks on age, but they have made age an issue of several campaigns with GOP candidates who were younger than Biden. Here are three times Democrats made age an issue about GOP presidential candidates.
1984: Ronald Reagan (age: 73)
Then-President Ronald Reagan, 73, was inundated with questions about his age in his 1984 reelection campaign, specifically after his first debate with Democratic nominee Walter Mondale, 56. During the first debate, Reagan had a lackluster performance, with Democrats saying he “looked tired” on the stage.
At the second debate between him and Mondale, Reagan was directly asked about his age and he delivered a famous line that ended doubts about his age for the campaign.
“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” Reagan said, eliciting laughter from the crowd and Mondale.
Reagan would go on to win a landslide election, winning every state except Minnesota and Washington, D.C. In 1994, nearly six years after leaving office, Reagan announced his Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.
1996: Bob Dole (age: 73)
Dole was 23 years older than his opponent, then-President Bill Clinton, 50, when age was made a key issue of the 1996 campaign. The age issue dominated the primary and the general election, with a Time magazine cover asking in 1995, “Is Dole too old for the job?”
The lasting incident, which ended up being a defining issue in the campaign by Democrats, was a fall Dole took while campaigning in California. Dole was shaking hands with people when he fell 3 1/2 feet from the stage. He wasn’t injured, and his campaign attempted to spin the fall as showing age was not an issue, but the optics were damaging to Dole’s campaign.
Clinton handily won reelection in November 1996, defeating Dole 379-159 in the Electoral College vote.
2008: John McCain (age: 72)
Democrats made age a significant factor in the 2008 election, creating a juxtaposition between then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), 47, and then-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), 72, with the idea Obama was the candidate of change.
The Obama campaign leaned into the Illinois Democrat’s youth, used it as part of the image of “hope” and “change,” and attacked McCain’s temperament and age in the final stretch of the campaign. During a CNN interview in May 2008, Obama directly went after McCain on the age issue by claiming that the Arizona Republican had “lost his bearings.”
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The McCain campaign would try to stave off the attacks, releasing medical records, among other moves, but the Obama attacks stuck.
Obama secured a commanding victory over McCain in the 2008 election, winning the Electoral College vote 365-173.
