A large majority of Americans want age limits and term limits for members of Congress, according to a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. About eight in 10 respondents said they favor both setting a maximum age for lawmakers and limiting how long they can serve.
Support crosses party lines and demographics. The poll found 78% of Democrats back both proposals; 83% of Republicans supported maximum age limits, and nearly nine in 10 Republicans favored term limits. The report notes these ideas are not currently being seriously considered in Congress despite broad public backing.
Experts and voters describe the results as part of a broader desire to pass the torch to younger leaders. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who studies generational differences, said the poll suggests many people believe lengthy tenures have clear drawbacks. “People can be in office longer, but should they? I think what this poll shows is a lot of people think the answer to that is no,” she said.
The poll of 1,322 adults was conducted April 27–30, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Respondents were contacted by live caller, text and online.
Differences by age were small: older voters were about as likely as younger ones to support age caps and term limits, which Twenge interprets as broad agreement that very elderly officeholders may not be the most effective leaders. “There seems to be a consensus that people think if you’re going to be an effective leader, you should not be 80 years old,” she said.
Concerns about age have been heightened by recent presidencies and an aging leadership on Capitol Hill. Many top lawmakers are in their 70s, 80s and 90s — for example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is 75 and Sen. Chuck Grassley is 92. The median age of U.S. workers is about 42, while the median age on Capitol Hill is 58 for House members and 65 in the Senate. This Congress is the third oldest in U.S. history and has seen five members die since last March; each was at least 65.
Young voters say the age gap contributes to a sense of being unrepresented. “I feel that they just might be out of touch. You’ve got 70 and 80-year-olds in Congress … running the country,” said 18-year-old Michael Hatch of Eudora, Kansas. Research firm AlphaROC provided NPR with a separate survey of 18- to 29-year-olds showing more than six in 10 in that group believe politicians do not represent their interests and that younger candidates are often not taken seriously.
The call for more representative leadership comes from across generations. NPR’s poll found Generation X — roughly those in their late 40s to early 60s — showed the highest levels of support for both term limits and age maximums. Voters like 62-year-old Patricia L., a Democratic voter in Phoenix, say younger voices are needed to address issues such as affordability and housing. “We have to have those voices in the room for these issues in order to be addressing problems that are happening right now,” she said, adding that dismissing young people because of their age is unfair.
The poll suggests a broad, bipartisan appetite for change in how long and how old elected officials can be, even if lawmakers have not moved to impose such limits.