Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

An Aging Senate Isn’t Good for Democracy

To reverse a worrying trend, both parties need to prioritize younger candidates.

November 30, 2020 at 12:31 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

Over the hill.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

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With two runoff elections in Georgia remaining and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s replacement not yet selected, it’s still too early to know the average age of incoming senators for the 117th Congress. But we can already conclude one thing: The trend toward older new senators is continuing, and probably getting worse.