Most US voters are concerned about the age of their next leader — but that doesn’t necessarily mean the issue will determine how they vote in November’s presidential election.
Poll after poll shows that high percentages of American voters worry that President Joe Biden, and to a lesser extent former president Donald Trump, are not mentally or physically up to another term in the White House. A recent NBC news poll found that more than three-quarters of those surveyed had either major or moderate concerns that Biden would not have “the necessary mental and physical health” to serve again. A recent swing state poll found 82 per cent of voters surveyed said Biden or both candidates were too old, while 47 per cent said the same about Trump or both candidates.
Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, are the oldest candidates ever to run for president of the US — and no one is letting them forget it. A report released recently by US Department of Justice special counsel Robert Hur called Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, prompting Democrats to fight back with a physical examination that found him “fit for duty” — though that did not include a cognitive test.