(CNN) — As funeral honors continue for the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died earlier this month at the age of 71, the national conversation around aging political figures has only intensified.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, 84, has been sidelined from Hill votes since a June fall landed him in the hospital and he also contracted a “mild case” of pneumonia, according to a recent statement from his office after weeks of speculation.
The current Congress is among the oldest in US history — a trend that is expected to accelerate, especially in the Senate. A majority of Americans see the size of the over-70 caucus as a major problem and want to see more transparency around elected officials’ health, according to a new CNN poll.
The midterm elections this November could be an opportunity for American voters to weigh in on the demographic makeup of Congress. Fifty-eight percent of Americans in the latest CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, say that the current share of elderly lawmakers serving in Congress poses a major problem. That rises to 68% among Americans younger than 35.
The average age of senators and representatives has been on a steady climb for decades.
The CNN poll also finds a desire for greater transparency about elected officials’ health more broadly. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they think elected officials ought to release all medical information that might affect their ability to serve, while just 35% say they have the same right as every other citizen to keep their medical records private.
That preference cuts across party lines and appears to have grown in the last few decades. In 2018, CNN polling found a near-even split over whether presidents should disclose their medical information, and in 2004, 61% came down on the side of privacy for those serving as president.
The CNN poll finds that 70% of people who align with either major party say they’d be uneasy or upset if their party nominated someone over the age of 70 for office. And a July Fox News Poll found that 85% of registered voters think there should be a mandatory retirement age for lawmakers, with about half of those saying they’d prefer that required age be below 70.
In the current Congress, more than a third of senators are over the age of 70.
This November, 20 incumbent senators are vying to return for another full term. Their ages range from 39 (Jon Ossoff of Georgia) to 83 (Jim Risch of Idaho), and if they all win their seats, more than half of them will be over 70 by 2033, the year their next potential term would conclude. Notably, McConnell and Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, 81, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, 79, are retiring after this year and are among the oldest in the Senate whose seats are up this cycle.
While the typical retirement age in the US sits squarely around 65, when many are eligible for federally funded health insurance through Medicare, the over-age-65 population is still well-represented across both parties in Congress.
Comparing to the general population
Because the US Constitution requires that members of the House must be at least 25 years of age or older, and the minimum age for senators is 30, Congress naturally skews older than the general population.
While only 19% of the general US population is over age 65, according to the Census Bureau’s 2025 data, the median age of currently sitting US senators is 66. That means while fewer than one in five Americans are over 65, about half of senators fit into that category.
At 92, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa is the oldest member of the Senate, where he serves as the president pro tempore. This role puts him third in line to the presidency — a fact recently underscored when he was the highest-ranking administration official not in attendance at the May security breach of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
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