By Ewan Palmer
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Following months of concern that President Joe Biden is too old for a second term in office, Donald Trump must now convince voters to back him in November while being the oldest presidential nominee in U.S history.
Biden confirmed on Sunday that he is ending his reelection campaign following weeks of pressure to do so after the president's languished and stumbling performance at the CNN debate.
The 2024 campaign has been dogged by accusations that both Biden, 81, and the 78-year-old Trump are too old to be running for office, with polls suggesting voters were not enthused by November's race being a rematch of the 2020 election.
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Now Biden is out of the 2024 race, it is just Trump who will face continuing suggestions that he is too old to be president. If Trump does win the next election, during his second term, he faces the prospect of overtaking Biden as being the oldest ever sitting U.S. president.
After confirming he is dropping out of the 2024 race, Biden went on to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. If Harris is confirmed as the Democrat's 2024 nomination, she will be 60 by the time of November's election, 18 years younger than her potential Republican rival.
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Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the 2024 nomination in the GOP primary, had previously suggested that voters will be put off by Trump's age.
"Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump," Haley told a crowd of her supporters in New Hampshire in January.
"The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election."
The comments have since been widely reshared on social media since Biden pulled out of the 2024 race against Trump.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow also said that the "old man in the race" is Trump now Biden has pulled out of the race, and that voters will see this as another negative toward the Republican.
"78-years-old and only occasionally coherent, with a record as president that is viewed by historians as the worst in the history of the country," Maddow said.
"A tenure that ended in violence. And he refuses to promise that there won't be more violence to come from his supporters. He is the old man in the race by a mile, dragging that legacy from what happened the last time he was in office, and now a national abortion ban and maybe his own prison sentence, with him to the polls."
The idea that voters also think Trump is also too old to run for the presidency is backed up by polls.
On July 11, an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos survey of 2,431 adults found that 60 percent believe the 78-year-old Republican is too old for a second term in office.
Trump's office has been contacted for comment via email.
Trump has not faced the same scrutiny on whether he lacks the mental or physical capability to run for a second term in office as Biden had throughout the 2024 campaign cycle so far.
Steve Hilton, former adviser to British ex-prime minister David Cameron turned Fox News commentator, suggested it is "ludicrous" to now suggest Trump is too old to run for office after Biden withdrew from race.
"It's not just about the age, it's also about the mental capacity," Hilton said on Sunday.
"Yesterday, we saw President Trump spend two hours at a rally, a week after he's been shot, standing up, entertaining the crowd making arguments," Hilton said.
"And yet tonight you see them on CNN and elsewhere, saying 'oh, he's not just old, his mental capacity is now an issue in this campaign.' It is so ludicrous."
In a post on Truth Social, Trump continued to attack the cognitive ability of Biden while suggesting he should also stand down as president after pulling out of the 2024 race.
"Who is running our Country right now? It's not Crooked Joe, he has no idea where he is," Trump wrote. "If he can't run for office, he can't run our Country!!!"
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