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I've seen some claims online that Trump (2024) and Biden (2020) were the oldest people to ever be nominated for president by a US political party.

However a bit of research seems to show that this isn't true. For example, Peter Cooper (1876:Greenback party) was 85, and William Hope Harvey (1932:Liberty party) was 81.

Who were the oldest presidential nominees, and where do Trump and Biden rank on this list?

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    Just to clarify, neither man was a nominee of a major party, (or even a very prominent minor party), so their "campaigns" were entirely symbolic.
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jul 22 at 11:32
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    @T.E.D. - Peter Cooper got 1% of the popular vote. I think as far as third party candidates go in the US that's fairly significant.
    – user67775
    Commented Jul 22 at 13:51
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    Depends on what you consider to be "significant" I guess. In 2020 Jo Jorgensen got a bit over 1% of the vote. Do you know who that is off the top of your head? I didn't before hitting the 2020 Election WP page.
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jul 22 at 13:59
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    @T.E.D. To be fair, in modern politics, people rarely remember which politician they ate for breakfast. Wait, I must be mixing metaphors...
    – End Antisemitic Hate
    Commented Jul 23 at 5:57

2 Answers 2

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It seems you have the correct candidates for being the oldest nominations. There was one other (than the two you mentioned), for a total of three nominees, older than Trump and Biden.. Although nominees in their 70s is not all that uncommon, and not even a recent phenomenon to boot!

Name Age at Nomination Election Year Pop. vote (%)
Peter Cooper 85 1876 0.99
William Hope Harvey 81 1932 0.13
John M. Palmer 79 1896 0.96
Donald Trump 78 2024 TBD
Joe Biden* 78 2020 51.31
Neal Dow 76 1880 0.11
Donald Trump 74 2020 46.85
Ralph Nader 74 2008 0.56
Samuel Adams 74 1796 n/a†
Bob Dole 73 1996 40.71
Ronald Reagan* 73 1984 58.77
John Bidwell 73 1892 2.24
John McCain 72 2008 45.65
Donald Trump* 70 2016 46.09
Ralph Nader 70 2004 0.38
* Indicates Winner † Predates 12th Amendment;
no pop. vote in several states

Joe Biden was oldest general election winner at 78 in 2020. This may potentially turn into a close second, if the current Republican nominee goes on to win the general election this cycle.

Note 1: ages may be +/- 1 year based on month of birth. I didn't go as far as to compare the exact date of nomination or election date versus birthdate.

Note 2: I did not check if all these candidates were on the ballot in all states at the time of general election or if they withdrew prior.

Note 3: I chose 70 as a cutoff point as the list would start to be cumbersome after that.

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    Also, I think I see how the non-major party names were selected (basically, if it made the "other" candidates list on the linked WP page), but it would be nice if we could figure out what WP's critera for inclusion there is. If not, perhaps just add a note to the answer that it was based on who the WP editors decided to consider a candidate or an "other" candidate when it was compiled? (likely that's the best that can be done)
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jul 22 at 13:22
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    Oh, and as for note 2, Harvey was not on the ballot in all states. His "party" was basically his own invention and it died with him (less than 4 years later). Neither was Nader (my mom was a plaintiff in the unsuccessful lawsuit to get him on the ballot in Oklahoma)
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jul 22 at 13:49
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    @T.E.D. the talk page says it's candidates that got at least 0.1% of the popular vote
    – user67775
    Commented Jul 23 at 5:02
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    Also note that Harry Byrd was not the nominee of any party and did not campaign for the presidency. He's on the Wikipedia list because he got votes from unpledged & faithless electors in the electoral college.
    – Michael Seifert
    Commented Jul 23 at 18:56
  • I took the liberty of adding the percentages of the popular vote received, in order to help contextualize whether these candidates were serious contenders or not. Feel free to revert the edit if you see fit.
    – Michael Seifert
    Commented Jul 23 at 20:44
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There's a good answer to this already that the OP is quite happy with. However, I strongly feel that the framing is vague and misleading. So I'd like to see us have an answer that's a bit more explicit.

Oldest Major Party Nominees:

Below are the oldest people to have recieved a nomination from what was at the time one of the 2 major parties.

Name Age at Nomination Election Year
Donald Trump 78 2024
Joe Biden 78 2020
Donald Trump 74 2020
Bob Dole 73 1996
Ronald Reagan 73 1984
John McCain 72 2008
Donald Trump 70 2016

Oldest Serious Nominees

Where a "serious nominee" is someone who was nominated by a party, actually mounted a campaign, and either received Electoral College votes or was on the ballot in all states that had ballots at the time.

Name Age at Nomination Election Year
Donald Trump 78 2024
Joe Biden 78 2020
Donald Trump 74 2020
Bob Dole 73 1996
Ronald Reagan 73 1984
John McCain 72 2008
Donald Trump 70 2016

Note that this is the same list

There are a couple of people who nearly made this list. Samuel Adams did receive electoral votes. However, US political parties did not give out "nominations" at that time, and he was a member of the same party as multiple other people who received Electoral College votes. Likewise, Harry Byrd in 1960 also received electoral votes without the benefit of any party's nomination.

Oldest Party Nominees to get 1%

This is the same list as the above 2, with the addition of 73 year old John Bidwell, who got a whopping 2.24% in the election of 1892 as the nominee of the Prohibition Party. That slots him in the table right under Ronald Reagan. He received no Electoral College votes, and was not on the ballot in all states.

Oldest Party Nominee

I don't think we know this one, and I don't know that we can know it. Every cycle hundreds of people "announce" they are running for President, and make themselves "parties" to make it look like a real campaign. For instance, comedian Pat Paulsen started a "campaign" as part of a comedy bit on the Smothers Brothers show, and kept doing it for multiple cycles thereafter. It was a good bit, allowing him to lampoon politicians during election seasons (a much-needed service).

Another such perennial candidate is Vermin Supreme, who has run as the nominee of the "Good Humor Party" and the "Free Pony Party". He's 64 now, and will presumably keep running in the future, health allowing.

Other people often mount symbolic campaigns to get media awareness for favorite causes. This was certainly the case for Willilam Hope Harvey, mentioned in the question. His "Liberty Party" was created to promote his own economic theories. (Note that his party merged with another during the election, so he ran as an independent, not a party nominee)

Then some people (actually, a whole lot of people) are just downright mentally unwell. I'm not adding examples here so as not to signal boost them.

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  • Vermin Supreme? Isn't that the one Trump considers his opponent? Or was it the other way round ...
    – Hagen von Eitzen
    Commented Jul 24 at 14:29
  • @HagenvonEitzen - When V.S. runs in major party primaries, its usually the Democratic Party. That of course doesn't mean his platform has a thing to do with that party. The same could be said for the late Lyndon Larouche.
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jul 24 at 19:40

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