Voters long believed that President Biden was too old to seek a second term. The issue torpedoed his campaign and saddled his vice president with an extraordinarily short political runway.
But one month after Democrats lost up and down the ticket, party leaders are already struggling with the next age-related question: How old is too old to be the 2028 Democratic nominee?
“There’s no such thing,” insisted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, 65, of New Mexico.
“It’s not a time of life, it’s a state of mind,” declared Gov. Gavin Newsom, 57, of California, adding that the idea of broadly defining 80 as too old to run was “absurd.”
“When I was growing up, people who were 65 were almost dead,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said. “I’m 65. I’m not almost dead.”
As the nation’s Democratic governors gathered for a winter meeting in Beverly Hills, Calif., this weekend, they lamented their party’s messaging challenges and grappled with the widespread defeats. But in interviews with roughly 10 Democratic governors and candidates for governor, no one offered an explicit age limit for the next nominee. And some said that age was irrelevant altogether if a candidate appeared to be in strong shape and was connecting with voters.
“I don’t have an age test,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, 67, though he allowed that he would be “surprised” if any 80-year-olds ended up in the running. “The question is: Are you in the game? Are you — we have an incredible bench, and the bench is sort of a spectrum of ages.”
