2025 Update on Senate Demographics
The older-than-Boomers thin out
Just reminded by my friends we’ve got a new Congress, so perhaps I should take a look at the oldest members of the Senate again, as well as the age distribution in the part of the Congress that is literally the Old Fogeys by name.
Age Distribution of the U.S. Senate, 2025
The youngest age to qualify as U.S. senator is 30 years old, and the youngest senators are 37 (Democrat Jon Ossoff of Georgia) and 39 (Republican Tim Sheehy of Montana).
For the above graph, I threw in Bernie Sanders and Angus King with the Democrats, as they are officially Independent, but caucus with the Democrats.
It is an interesting cluster of Republicans in the 70-74 year-old age bucket, with none in the 75-79 group, but it’s just one of those random things I would say.
The oldest Baby Boomers, born in 1946, will turn 79 this year. But the peak Boomer birth year was around 1957.
As you can see in the above graph, there are far more people aged 65-69 than 75-79 in the U.S., some of which came from the birth patterns, but in 2025, a lot of this comes from increasing mortality with increasing age.
10 Oldest U.S. Senators, 2025
The older-than-Boomer (or Silent Generation) group of Senators has been dying off, as with Dianne Feinstein, and many have taken the hint and decided not to run for re-election, as with Mitch McConnell.
As with my post from two years ago, I’m using the 2019 period mortality of the U.S. to measure the “oldness” of the Senators. There are two 77-year-old female Senators, but the mortality for a 75-year-old male is worse than for a 77-year-old female, in general.
I’m using the 2019 mortality assumption still, as the most recent Social Security life tables posted are using 2021 mortality… and that’s too pessimistic, in my opinion.
The top 6 guys on this table are older-than-Boomers, and of these guys, I know Mitch McConnell has said he’s not running for re-election in 2026.
Chuck Grassley’s next election would be 2028… well, let’s just see if he gets to it. The 34% probability of death in the next two years I’m calculating would just get him to the end of 2026, forget about 2028.
Still, it’s nice to see that some of these people are finally “aging out”, without dying in office. Give some younger folks a chance.
Spreadsheet
More Political Mortality
A short selection of political-related mortality posts:
Jan 2024: Trump v. Biden Take Two - Using Social Security Mortality Assumptions
Sep 2023: Politicians: Don't Tempt the Reaper
Feb 2023: Senate Mortality 2023: Top Ten Old Senators
April 2023: Is Joe Biden Likely to Die Within 5-6 Years?
April 2022: All Men Must Die, But They Don't Have to Die in Office
September 2020: On increasing life expectancy and the Supreme Court
May 2023: A Sampling of Political Mortality
I would be very happy to have a chance to vote on a GenXer. I am not sure our political machine will allow that for another 20 years. (Heavy Sigh)
My parents are 85 and 88. A couple of years ago I would have considered an 80 year old Senator to be out of touch, but probably competent. After watching my mother's rapid decline, and her insistence that she's not declining, my views have changed. My Senators are both 75+, as is my Representative. I have no confidence in their ability to govern well over their next terms, even if they live long enough to run for another term.