Political Mortality: STUMP Compilation As of September 2025
Putting it all together, because not everybody has been following the same things I have
With my most recent post on the AfD deaths in Germany:
Political Candidate Deaths: Seven German AfD politicians die within weeks of each other ahead of elections
4 Sep 2025, Breitbart: Seven AfD Candidates Die Ahead of Local German Elections
A few people pushed back regarding politicians in poor health running for office.
Look, I understand. You may be looking at my post in isolation.
Your assumption is: a reasonable person, not feeling great, wouldn’t run for political office. So those running for office should be in better-than-average health!
I used to believe the same, too.
But then I started watching what those addicted to running for political office actually did.
The worst cases are incumbents.
STUMP: A retrospective on political mortality
STUMP is this substack (STU = my late husband who died at the age of 62 from cancer, Stu; MP = me, Mary Pat).
Before this substack even existed, I had a blog on marypat.org, and even posts on my LiveJournal going back to 2000.
Here are [some of] my posts on political mortality — I may have missed some: [and these are in no particular order, as you can see]
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
March 2021: Mortality with Meep: Likelihood of Senate Control Changing Due to Death
Feb 2022: Political mortality: on old people in the Senate and death probabilities
Feb 2021: Mortality with Meep: On The Congressional Body of Old Folks and Deaths in Office
January 2019: Mortality with Meep: Death Distributions and Survival Probability [this had to do with Ruth Bader Ginsburg]
Jan 2025: 2025 Update on Senate Demographics
Jan 2024: Trump v. Biden Take Two - Using Social Security Mortality Assumptions
Sep 2023: Politicians: Don't Tempt the Reaper
July 2018: Supreme Court Mortality Projection Update!
Apr 2017: Mortality Monday (with a little Trumpery): Supreme Court Probabilities Take 2
Apr 2025: Congressional Mortality Has Consequences
20 Jan 2025: Falls are Dangerous for Seniors: Nancy Pelosi and Pope Francis
20 Jul 2024: RIP, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: An Update on Pancreatic Cancer Death Trends
5 Sep 2025: Political Candidate Deaths: Seven German AfD politicians die within weeks of each other ahead of elections
25 May 2025: Political Mortality Update: Yes, A THIRD Democratic Representative Died in 2025
22 May 2025: President Biden Had Followed Bad Prostate Cancer Screening Guidelines -- Here are Better Ones
18 May 2025: Best Wishes to Former President Biden: A Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
Sep 2008: Life expectancy of John McCain
I probably had some other posts, but I’m trying to gather together the political-specific mortality posts, even going back to the LiveJournal post, which you see in that last one from 2008.
The above is not exhaustive, because I’ve been writing about mortality, as you can see, for a few decades. I may have missed some political mortality posts.
But I need to make some remarks about assumptions before we get too much farther.
Question Your Assumptions
Look.
If you want to cuddle your conspiracy theory to your chest, I cannot stop you. Go do that.
However, if you want to determine if there is something actually truthful (as opposed to truthy-ish) going on, you need to stop and actually look at the people in the current seats, what they’ve been doing, and what happens as they deteriorate.
One of the big things I’ve had to notice in the U.S.: the OLDER-THAN-BOOMERS politicians not being willing to step aside until death took away their ability to do anything about anything.
Some of them (like Senator Dianne Feinstein) died in office. There are some politicians, right now, who are saying they will run for office again, and as a life actuary, I’m thinking… I’m not sure you have much of a choice about that.
There have been politicians who have been given diagnoses where it’s been fairly clear they would die shortly… and they didn’t resign. There was not a large period between the announcement of diagnosis and death, so… not sure the point either way.
This is all to say:
YES, POLITICIANS WILL RUN FOR OFFICE WHILE IN POOR HEALTH
HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN ANY HISTORY
But to step back for a moment:
A lot of people are on the precipice of death, but don’t even realize it.
The Shape of Mortality
“People don’t just drop dead!”
Yes, they do.
Obviously, there are accidental causes of death (and suicide and homicide).
But more to the point, a lot of people are not aware of the likelihood of people dying. This was even before 2020.
Sure, I’m biased because my dad died of a heart attack at the age of 38 in 1990 (and there were special conditions for that — most people are not going to have a heart attack at 38 — were you smoking since the age of 19? And had bad cardiac health? And had horrid gum disease?)
So let’s look at the U.S. rates of death in 2019:
Of course, that’s blended by sex — and in politics, we know more males than females run for office. So the mortality would be even worse.
I shouldn’t have kept the young ages in, I suppose — but a lot of people do not understand how rapidly mortality rates climb.
A lot of those running for political office are in their 60s and older.
The annual mortality rate for those folks (again, I didn’t split out male/female here) are 1% and higher — this is high, but you wouldn’t know this, unless you worked in this area.
Many people in their middle age and older do not realize how they’re going over the morbidity/mortality cliff.
(Please get your appropriate cancer screenings, at the very least.)
Have You Met a Politician?
But if they were in poor health, they wouldn’t run!
ARE YOU SURE?
How much are you willing to bet?
Regular people, sure, don’t want to run for political seats. If they were ill, they’d bow out.
From 2023:
Dianne Feinstein is dead. Chuck Grassley and Bernie Sanders are not.
Grassley is 91 years old. His Senate term is up in January 2029, when he’d be …older, if he lives that long.
Sanders is currently 83 years old.
Both Grassley and Sanders (as of right now) have left open the possibility of running again in 2028 and 2030 (their re-election years).
Most normal people would say that’s way too old to be running again. Most normal people would say — hey, shouldn’t you be cultivating successors? I mean, don’t you care about younger Republicans or Democrats? You do know that you’re going to die one day, right?
[OH Bernie is an Independent……. don’t make me stare at you. Do you think Bernie would be happy with a Republican replacement? A Democrat replacement?]
Some politicians are normal people.
But many (most?) are not.
So… maybe adjust your assumptions about what politicians would do.
The only cure for the political bug is embalming fluid.