There is not only agreement across political lines, but across demographic groups, such as age, as well. Young and old, including seniors, favor upper age limits for elected officials.
And far more Americans believe that more young people in elected office would be a positive for US politics than a negative.
So what should that age be? When offered a list of ages, age 70 is the top answer chosen. That’s older than the current average age of members of Congress, but about a third of current U.S. senators are 70 or older.
While young and old alike believe elected officials should not be allowed to serve past a certain age, younger Americans are slightly more likely than older Americans to set that maximum age at 60.
Would having more young people in elected office make politics better? Many believe it would be. We asked for a list of groups, and although no group or response garnered an overall majority, the top response was more young people in elected office (followed closely by having more women in office).
Few Americans believe that having more seniors serve in public office would make politics better. By more than three to one, they believe it would make politics worse, not better, and that includes most Americans.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,085 US adults surveyed between August 29 and 31, 2022. The sample was weighted by sex, age, race and education based on the Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as for the 2020 presidential election. Margin of error is ±2.6 points.
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