April 26, 2023 (SFChronicle.com)
As President Biden kicked off his 2024 re-election effort Tuesday, wariness over his and former President Donald Trump’s ages, combined with Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s extended absence from the Senate, has resurfaced concerns about the increasing age of many politicians and put a spotlight on the youth vote in the 2024 election.
Young political activists have called out the political gerontocracy in recent years, attributing a lack of action on issues like climate change and gun violence to a lack of urgency among older politicians. But the presidential contest — in which the two frontrunners could be among the oldest candidates ever at 80 and 76 — has made the issue more glaring than ever.
“There’s a degree in which we really do need fresh and young leadership,” said Michele Weindling, electoral director for the youth-led climate activism group Sunrise Movement. That said, “our generation isn’t really voting on someone’s age, we’re voting on their issues,” she said.
Biden is 80, and if re-elected, would be 86 at the end of his second term. Trump is 76. Either would end a second term as the oldest president in history.
“Is it ideal that we have an 80-year-old running for president? No. But he’s the best hope we have for beating Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., said Tuesday at an event in Manhattan.
Biden has routinely pushed back against concerns about his age. When PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff asked Biden in February whether his age made him hesitate about running for re-election, he responded: “Watch me.”
A day after the announcement, Biden said the campaign will be an effective tool for the public to determine whether he’s still fit for the job.
“How old I am — I can’t even say the number, it doesn’t register with me,” Biden said during a press conference Wednesday. “One of the things that people are going to find out — we’re going to see a race and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it. I respect them taking a hard look at it. I take a hard look at it as well. I took a hard look at it before I decided to run. And I feel good.”
Biden will likely also rely on younger allies like Vice President Kamala Harris, 58, and possibly California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 55, on the campaign trail. But the president’s age will likely remain top of mind for voters: 51% of Democrats don’t think Biden should run for re-election, according to an April NBC News poll, and 69% of respondents who said he shouldn’t run attributed their answer, at least in part, to his age.
Harris gave a preview of how her relative youth — at least compared to Biden — would play on the campaign trail at an event at Howard University on Tuesday night. The crowd at her alma mater roared with applause when she addressed abortion rights and GOP-led book bans.
“Don’t think it’s not a national agenda when they start banning books. Banning books to stand in the way of teaching America’s full history, so the truth can be spoken, so we can learn and do better.”
Biden won 62% of the youth vote in 2020, when he also faced Trump. Antonio Arellano, vice president of communications for youth vote political nonprofit NextGen America, expects that to be the same, if not greater, in 2024.
“Young people are relentlessly organizing and mobilizing to make sure that Congress continues to prioritize the issues that matter most to them,” Arellano said.
Whether Biden and others prioritize those issues could be key to their success, Weindling said.
“It’s going to be really critical for (Democrats) to remember why they were successful in 2020. And the reason they were successful in 2020 is because Biden ran on a progressive agenda that activated young people,” Weindling said. Proposals addressing student debt forgiveness, the climate crisis and gun control were key parts of that platform, she said.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, made a rare decision by a politician at the peak of her power: to step down from leadership in November. “For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus,” she said then.
Generational change will be the name of the game in California politics in the coming years, with Feinstein’s retirement, Pelosi’s decision to step down from leadership and the aging of House members.
About half of the Bay Area congressional delegation is over 70 years old — Mark DeSaulnier, D-Antioch, 71; Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, 80; John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, 78; Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, 76; Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, 75; Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, 83; and Mike Thompson, D-Napa, 72.
Former Rep. Jackie Speier told The Chronicle in 2021 that she thinks politicians should be required to retire at 75 (for the record, she retired earlier this year at 72).
Youth climate activists, however, have been frustrated with some of Biden’s recent decisions — including approving Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project on federal land in Alaska; allowing language in a federal law to make it easier to drill for oil offshore; and approving increased exports of liquefied natural gas.
At least one group has been loudly calling out Biden and his appointees for those recent actions. Climate Defiance, a new youth-led climate protest group, has prevented several Biden environmental officials from giving speeches by holding sit-ins or singing over them during speeches and plans to blockade the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday.
Those activists, however, have tended to focus on Biden’s policies, not his age.
Beaei Pardo, Midwest outreach organizer of Climate Defiance, said, “I don’t care how old he is, I want him to keep his promise.”
“It feels like the passage on the Willow project was a betrayal to younger generations,” Weindling said. “2024 looks different. I think he has a lot of trust he needs to gain back from our generation.”
Reach Shira Stein: shira.stein@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @shiramstein
Written By Shira Stein
Shira Stein is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent, covering national politics and policy with a particular eye to the impacts on California. She was previously a health care reporter and received several awards for her work covering the COVID-19 pandemic for Bloomberg. She also covered the fall of Roe v. Wade, including being the first to report President Joe Biden’s consideration of a public health emergency for reproductive rights; the Trump administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices; and the third legal fight to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
She previously interned at the Washington Post, Bloomberg Law, and the Colorado-based Durango Herald. She is a native of the Bay Area and a graduate of American University.
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