If he wins the presidency next year, he’ll be the oldest person ever elected to the White House.
Yes, that would be President Joe Biden. But it would also be former President Donald Trump.
Biden was the oldest presidential winner ever, when he won in 2020. The fact that he’d beat his own record is a historical footnote that has voters concerned.
Trump is no spring chicken either. In fact, he’s just three years younger than Biden. But he’s not facing nearly the same scrutiny for his age.
“Trump just comes off as a much younger person,” said Renee King, a two-time Trump voter in Mondamin, Iowa, who is undecided for 2024. (King declined to give her age.) “Just the way he speaks, the way he walks. Just everything he does.”
“He’s more into social media,” said Jane Story, 56, a Trump supporter in Ames, Iowa. “I mean, anybody has to learn with the times. And I just feel as though Trump has moved with the times and Biden has not.”
Dawn Brockett, 57, an independent from Hampton, New Hampshire, said Trump seems like he’s “blessed with that ability to — like a Mick Jagger, like he’ll be young forever.” Brockett said she plans to write in a candidate if the general election ends up being Biden against Trump.
NBC News interviewed dozens of voters in roughly half a dozen states about why Biden’s age is more of an issue than Trump’s. The responses showed that voters of all ages are concerned about whether Biden is up to another full term in one of the world’s most demanding jobs, although many also said that they’d like to see more younger candidates across the board.
“No doubt in my mind, I will vote for Biden. But we need age limits in politicians, and I would like to see much younger candidates,” said Tammy, a Democratic voter in Geauga County, Ohio, who declined to give her last name.
Mary Miller, 60, from Novelty, Ohio, voted Republican much of her life but supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. She is happy with Biden’s performance but says she does worry about his age.
“When I listen to him speak publicly, I kind of hold my breath sometimes,” she said. “But you know, he’s the guy we’ve got, and … I don’t think it’s such a bad thing.”
When it came to Biden and Trump, some also thought the age gap was bigger than it really is.
Lisa Dumont, 49, a voter from Salem, New Hampshire, who voted for Trump twice but now backs former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, said Biden’s age was a “huge problem” because Biden “can barely speak.”
She guessed the president was 86 (he’s 80) and Trump is 75 (he’s 77).
Story, from Iowa, shaved some years off both men, guessing “70-something” for Biden and “60-something” for Trump.
But for the most part, voters were pretty close in knowing — or guessing — their ages. And for them, it was just a number.
Trump, they said, has simply aged better.
“It’s genetic,” said Ilia Charlat, 53, from Bedford, New Hampshire, who plans to back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis next year. “It comes from that, and lifestyle, but just you can see that … Biden is just an older person. … You can see [with] Trump how quick he is.”
“It’s not really age. It’s how you function at that age, rather than anything. And Trump functions a lot better than Biden,” said Isiah Chamberlain, 18, from Rindge, New Hampshire, who plans to vote Republican.
Trump, of course, has done everything he can to make Biden not seem up for the job. Since the 2020 election, he’s called him “Sleepy Joe” and questioned his intelligence.
“You look at him, he can’t walk to the helicopter. He walks — he can’t lift his feet out of the grass,” Trump told conservative pundit Tucker Carlson last month.
“He’s physically incapable and he’s mentally worse than physical,” Trump added in a Sept. 2 interview with Real America’
