Political Mortality Update: Yes, A THIRD Democratic Representative Died in 2025
RIP, Rep. Gerry Connolly, but the stats are in line with the age of these reps
Let me lead me with the news from last week:
NBC News, 21 May 2025: Rep. Gerry Connolly, top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, dies at 75
WASHINGTON — Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee known for his vocal advocacy of federal workers and his frequent clashes with Republicans during televised hearings, died Wednesday morning, his family said. He was 75.
He died less than a year after he won a competitive race to become the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, one of the key panels that are charged with keeping a check on the executive branch. He announced last month that his esophageal cancer had returned despite “grueling treatments” and said he would not run for re-election next year.
“Gerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better. He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless. He always stood up for what is right and just. He was a skilled statesman on the international stage, an accomplished legislator in Congress, a visionary executive on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a fierce defender of democracy, an environmental champion, and a mentor to so many,” his family said in a statement announcing his death.
….
Connolly is the third House Democrat to have died in office during the past three months. Sylvester Turner of Texas suddenly died on March 5, shortly after he attended President Donald Trump’s address to Congress. And longtime Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona died on March 13 after his own cancer diagnosis.
Connolly's death means Republicans now hold a 220-212 majority in the House.
Okay, let me get into this, because some people are trying to make this “a thing”.
They do not understand how high mortality rates are for people are above age 65, and how rapidly it climbs with age, yes, even for people within Congress.
Actuary enters the chat
On twitter/X:
Look. This is absurd if you don’t adjust for age. Loggers are a lot younger than politicians.
Let’s look at the ages of the people who died in 2025, in no particular order:
Gerry Connolly: 75
Sylvester Turner: 70
Raúl Grijalva: 77
Lots of over-70-year-old loggers out there, ya think? Especially two who had cancer? We still have no idea what Sylvester Turner died from. The family may know but aren’t saying — that’s fine, they don’t have to.
Let’s compare to the Social Security tables using 2019 mortality (I think 2021 may be too high - 2019 may be too low for general population, but just fine for Congress.)
Probability of dying in the next year: [just doing to
70-year-old male: 2.2%
75-year-old male: 3.5%
77-year-old male: 4.2%
So yeah, compared to 3.7% annualized death rate Henry Burke estimated, that’s not too far out of line with population statistics, given their ages.
I will drop some stats below — not all of Congress is the same age (or sex) as these three recent decedents. Some are older.
But also - Gerry Connolly already knew he had a cancer with not the best survival stats. This is not a big mystery.
Not Many 70-Year-Old Loggers
The issue, of course, is that most professions don’t have people age 70 and up in them.
There are a few professions that have age limits, like commercial pilots.
We can look at the entire U.S. population, in terms of what percentage of those over the age of 75 are in the workforce:
That’s an interesting pattern, and you can see about twice the percentage of older men, in percentage, than women, are participating in the workforce… but also, remember that men tend to die younger.
Let’s just say the U.S. House of Representatives (and the Senate, for sure) is not your "normal” workplace in terms of demographics.
Let’s check out some of the stats below.
Updated Death roll call for the House of Representatives: 2020 - present
Let me update the table of House members who have died in office since January 2020:
Again, if you check the list of those who died, it’s unsurprisingly pitched toward those who are older. The three who are younger, two were from cancer and one from an accident.
Indeed, as a wide category, we see cancer as the primary named cause of death here.
Updated Average Age of Representative by State, May 2025
Some of these states are influenced by having only a few representatives, of course.
Distribution of Ages in the House of Representatives by Party
There is an interesting disparity in age distributions here.
The Republicans in the House have the bulk of their representatives sitting firmly in middle age, from age 50-65, with plenty of life experience and while there are older members, there aren’t too many. They also limit how long people can keep certain leadership positions in the House.
The Democrats have quite a few more oldsters than the Republicans, especially in the age 75 and up grouping… and they lean hard on seniority rules. They have too many old people gumming up the works in leadership positions, preventing those younger members from developing leadership experience. They haven’t figured out how to get their superannuated members into the equivalent of emeritus positions until it’s too late.
Nobody wants to give up power.
Democrats Have an Age Problem in Leadership… for Now
NYT, 25 May 2025, op-ed by Michelle Cottle: How the Ravages of Age Are Ravaging the Democratic Party
Now is the time for the Democratic Party to get serious about its oldsters problem.
….
That said, last week also reminded us that the Democrats’ flirtation with gerontocracy is not confined to a single office or branch of government when, on Wednesday, the House was shaken by the death of Representative Gerry Connolly.
Mr. Connolly, a 75-year-old lawmaker from Northern Virginia, had been in poor health. On Nov. 7 last year, two days after his re-election to a ninth term, he announced he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and would undergo treatments. Even so, in December he won a high-profile contest against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. The race was seen as a struggle over the future of the seniority system that has long shaped how Democrats pick committee leaders. Despite concerns about his health, seniority carried the day. On April 28, he announced that his cancer had returned and that he would not seek re-election next year. Less than a month later, he was gone.
….
Neither major party is immune to the practical challenges of aging leaders. (For Republican drama, see last year’s long, mysterious absence of the now-retired representative Kay Granger [age 82].) But the problem has been extra-sticky for Democrats for years, in part because Ms. Pelosi [age 85] and her equally senior lieutenants, Steny Hoyer, now 85, and Jim Clyburn, now 84, sat atop the caucus for so long that younger members started leaving in frustration — or plotted to oust them. It took a coup threat or two to get Ms. Pelosi et al. to relinquish their grip, and tensions between younger members and the old guard remain.
The Ocasio-Cortez and Connolly struggle was just one of the generational matches to kick off this Congress, and the party has yet to find a good way to balance experience with energy. Among other challenges, Democrats do not put term limits on committee leaders, unlike Republicans, and plum assignments are doled out based heavily on length of service.
Concerns about America’s aging political leadership are longstanding. But the Biden debacle has given them new urgency — especially as the Democrats struggle to win back younger voters. If talking about age feels too icky, think of it more in terms of revivifying the party’s ideas and approach to meet the moment. Among Democrats at all levels, there is much debate over rebranding and rebuilding and reconnecting with voters who feel alienated from the current system. Figuring out how to elevate new voices needs to be a part of the process.
I added Pelosi’s age to the copy above. Funny it wasn’t prominent in a piece about how old everybody in Congress is.
In case you were wondering, AOC is 35 years old.
If you think talking about age is icky, how about talking about death? And its connection to age?
Memento Mori, y’all.
I figure this is something that time will take care of. Their problem was a few years back, frankly. Right now, the Grim Reaper is taking care of their problem for them.
Except… new leaders haven’t necessarily been developed. That’s a problem.
Spreadsheet
Related Posts
10 Apr 2025: Congressional Mortality Has Consequences
20 Jan 2025: Falls are Dangerous for Seniors: Nancy Pelosi and Pope Francis
25 Jan 2025: 2025 Update on Senate Demographics
20 Jul 2024: RIP, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: An Update on Pancreatic Cancer Death Trends
Sep 2023: Politicians: Don't Tempt the Reaper
April 2022: All Men Must Die, But They Don't Have to Die in Office
May 2023: A Sampling of Political Mortality
You may want to look for a paper from George Washington University on the positive impact of air conditioning on the lifespans of Congressional members. Read it years ago. Also, the major difference between the old and newer Hill office buildings is how the old ones were built befote a/c. I worked in the Longworth House Office Building, and its ground floor windows are huge. Perhaps things were better before a/c: members had an incentive to wrap up their work and get out of DC before the summer heat hit.
I would maintain that the deaths of sitting US members of congress have shown an outlying pattern since COVID started.
A fairly obvious note to any actuary: people who are working tend to have lower mortality than the general population of people the same age. Why: people who are working tend - mind you I said tend - not to have end stage cancer or other diseases that are about to kill them. They also tend not to be seriously disabled, which is a risk factor for death.
Members of congress are notorious for staying in congress for months or even years after they are not capable of doing much besides getting to the floor to place a vote. Still, it's not fair to expect that a 79 year old sitting member of congress would have the same chance of death as any random 79 year old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Congress_members_who_died_in_office_(2000–present)
It shows that 19 members of congress (both senate and house) died in office from 2000 to 2009. Exclude Paul Wellston, who died in a plane crash, since that would have nothing to do with health, but not Paul Gillmor, since falls down the stairs generally have everything to do with health.
Revised count: 18 deaths, 7 Rs and 11 Ds
From 2010 to 2019 - 12 deaths, with the only accidental one being from a "fall". Again, I won't exclude this, since most falls have a lot to do with the health of the person.
12 Deaths, 4 Rs, 8Ds
From 2020 through May 26, 2025
14 deaths, with one traffic accident (Jackie Walorski) to be excluded. Only ONE of these was from COVID, and yes he was a Republican.
So we count 13 deaths, with 3 Rs and 10 Ds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Congress_members_who_died_in_office_(1950–1999)
Going back a little further, there were 16 deaths-in-office in the 1990s, with two of those being pure accidents, so 14 health related deaths.
In the 80s, there were 29 deaths, but there was one suicide, 2 plane crash deaths and one member died in the incident where the Soviets shot down an airliner. So, 25 health related deaths. If you look at little closer, though, you will see that a whopping 11 of those deaths were men dying of heart attacks. This data isn't really comparable because more men had heart disease and the diagnosis and treatments were less sophisticated in the 80s.
If you adjust that for a full ten years it would be 23.6 deaths
So to recap:
1980s - 25 deaths - 11 heart attacks
1990s - 16 deaths
2000s - 18 deaths, average age 68.4
2010s - 12 deaths, average age 76.9
2020s - adjusted for a full decade - 23.6 deaths, average age 73.9.
I'll admit, this isn't the gazillion sigma event we have when looking at group life insured mortality - it's more like a 1.5 or 2 sigma event. The numbers are small enough that it COULD conceivably be due to chance. Just barely.