We are nearing the end of November, which means the leaves are crisping and falling and students are stressing about their upcoming finals while the holiday cheer takes over. However, this time in November also means we are less than a year away from the awaited — or perhaps in some cases dreaded — 2024 United States election.

While the presidential candidates are set to debate political issues in three general election forums starting in September of next year, a heavily debated issue affecting the public’s view of candidates has already become apparent: candidates’ age. Many Americans worry that political candidates and representatives are “too old” for their positions, as demonstrated in polling conducted by universities.

Quinnipiac University’s poll on the 2024 primary races, published this past September, found that 61% of voters “support setting a maximum age limit for candidates to be eligible to run for president of the United States.”

The support for a maximum age limit was even higher for congressional candidates, at a 66% approval rate by U.S voters, according to the same poll.

Additionally, a poll conducted this past August by the Associated Press National Opinion Research Center, a social research organization at the University of Chicago, found that 77% of U.S. adults think President Joe Biden is “too old for another term” and 51% of U.S adults think the same of former President Donald Trump.

These poll findings are significant because they demonstrate that an overwhelming majority of American voters exhibit a concern for political candidates’ and representatives’ older ages.

The truth is voters have a right to be concerned.

Business Insider’s 2022 “Red, White, and Gray” project examined the U.S. gerontocracy, or “a government based on rule by old people.” The project asserts that the American “government is becoming less and less reflective of the youthful society it represents,” citing how half of the U.S. population is younger than 38 years old, yet 95% of American lawmakers are above this age.

Moreover, according to The Washington Post, the current law-making class is “one of the oldest in history,” with the senator’s median age at an all-time high.

The Post also indicated that millennials make up an extremely small minority of U.S. lawmakers, and there is only one Gen Z member in Congress.

These findings highlight the misalignment between the ages of representatives and the ages of the citizens they are meant to represent, which is one motivation behind why a majority of U.S. adults feel many politicians are “too old” to hold their positions. Accordingly, concerns of age are also relevant to the presidential race.

Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center conducted polls on Americans’ ideal age for a president. Their findings revealed that the majority of U.S. adults aged 30-59 think it is best for a president to be in their 50s.

Only 3% of U.S. adults responded that it is best for a president to be 70 or older, and yet the arguably two most discussed presidential candidates for 2024 — Biden and Trump — are within this age group.

However, there’s another layer to these concerns about politicians’ age in that certain politicians’ older ages are also seemingly hindering their performance at their positions. For instance, in July, Mitch McConnell stopped speaking suddenly and seemed to freeze during an important news conference.

We’ve seen similar instances with other older politicians, including Biden, who, as recently as this past October, froze in the middle of a sentence during a press conference.

Moreover, beyond the demographic misrepresentation and possibly hindered job capabilities caused by politicians’ older ages, there is also the issue of politicians’ older ages skewing their political views and priorities away from those of the public. As Eve Peyser, a writer featured in New York Magazine, points out, “older legislators might have a different understanding of some of the biggest issues facing the country … most apparent when it comes to climate change.”

For all these reasons, it seems that politicians’ older ages are an imminent barrier to desired political progress and representation. Unfortunately, the introduction of political age limits is unlikely to happen anytime soon, as it would most likely require amending the U.S. Constitution. Considering that, to create better youth representation in U.S. politics, older incumbents should retire, and voters should concurrently support younger candidates’ campaigns for office.