76 percent in new poll favor age cap for president

About three-fourths of Americans say there should be a ceiling for how old someone can be to serve as president, according to a new The Economist/YouGov poll.

Seventy-six percent of respondents said there should “be a maximum age for someone in the U.S. to serve as” president in the survey. A similar percentage said there should be a cap on that age to serve in the Senate and as a member of Congress in general. 

Questions about the age and health of politicians have swirled in the U.S. recently. Both presumed Democratic and Republican nominees for president, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, are over the age of 70. 

Biden is 80, and polls suggest an increasing number of Democratic voters are worried over his age. Trump is 77.

In the Senate, GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) froze up at a press conference last week for the second time in recent weeks, raising questions about his own age and health problems. A Capitol doctor cleared McConnell “to continue with his schedule as planned” a day later.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is another prominent politician whose age and health concerns have made national news recently. She was absent from the Senate for months due to shingles and encephalitis earlier this year.

The poll was conducted Sept. 2-5, featuring answers from 1,500 U.S. citizens 18 or older and has a margin error of 3.3 percent, according to a poll description.