Voters Say They Want Younger Politicians. So Why Do They Keep Voting for Old Ones?

Here’s a paradox for you: In overwhelming numbers, voters keep telling pollsters that they want upper age limits and term limits for members of Congress. At the same time, they keep voting to reelect long-serving lawmakers who are in their 70s and 80s.

Massachusetts offers the latest evidence. Older incumbents of all ideological stripes swept the state’s Democratic primaries last night. In the race for U.S. Senate, two-term Sen. Ed Markey, an 80-year-old progressive, easily dispatched the more moderate Rep. Seth Moulton, 47. Elsewhere, Reps. Richard Neal and Stephen Lynch, who are both in their 70s and have collectively been in office for more than six decades, fended off younger and leftier challengers.

As the saying goes, age is but a number. Yet voters keep telling us it’s actually a lot more than that. At first glance, Markey’s win would seem to break a recent streak of older incumbents falling to more youthful candidates. So far this year, the losers include Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York (71), Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan (71), and Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado (69). But Markey’s victory also fits a different pattern: In all three of those earlier races, the elder lawmaker lost to a more outspokenly progressive rival. And for Massachusetts Democrats contemplating who they wanted as their next senator, ideology was clearly more important than age.

When Moulton launched his campaign, he downplayed any real policy differences with Markey. “Sen. Markey is a good man, but it’s time for a new generation of leadership,” he said in his announcement video. Markey, though, hammered the issues where they did diverge—including the debate over transgender rights. After Kamala Harris lost in 2024, a defeat some Democrats attributed in part to a viral pro-Trump ad that argued “ Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you ,” Moulton expressed opposition to trans athletes playing in women’s sports. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete,” he told the New York Times .

Moulton later retreated from those remarks (“I’m sorry if my comments hurt you,” he told the trans community last month), but Markey sought to make them stick. “Trans rights are human rights,” the senator said recently . In a preelection poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters said they were less likely to support a candidate who had opposed trans rights, and about the same share said they trusted Markey to better represent them on the issues they cared about. So going forward, it’s probably better to think of age as a factor, but rarely the factor, in how voters approach candidates.

Moulton’s drubbing has some progressives crowing that new ideas, not just fresh faces , are what Democrats need to compete. How, then, to explain the survival of Neal and Lynch, two longtime members of Congress who put down progressive challenges from first-time candidates last night?

One answer is straightforward: Politicians who seek reelection almost always win. Nationwide, 95 percent of all incumbents reclaimed their seats in 2024.