How long might Joe Biden live?
It's an uncomfortable question ... but an essential one when it comes to the leader of the Free World.
Plenty of people speculate about the advanced ages of the two main presidential candidates. Joe Biden will be 82 at the end of November, just weeks after the election is over. Donald Trump will be 78.
If President Biden is elected to a second term, what are the odds he would serve all four years?
The Social Security Administration actuarial predictions show that a male born in 1942, like Biden, can expect to live another 8.1 years on average. Katia Iervasi, a lead writer and spokesperson at NerdWallet, crunched CDC mortality numbers to show that an 80-year-old man has a 31.35% chance of dying within 5 years.
It’s probably accurate to say that just looking at mortality statistics, if re-elected, President Biden has about a one-third chance of dying in office.
He has some factors in his favor. He has best medical care in the world, he’s not overweight, and he doesn’t smoke.
On the flip side, he certainly doesn’t look like the healthiest 81-year-old, with his slow shuffle, and clear cognitive decline. He’s only four years older than Donald Trump, but by outward appearances looks much older than that.
He’s also got a hard job that has aged him in the last four years, a job that won’t get any easier. Even younger men like Obama, Clinton, and George W. Bush aged dramatically by the end of their terms … and Biden is much less vigorous than any of them.
(If you want a refresher on what happens if Biden were to die or resign before the election, we recently took a look at some of those scenarios.)
The numbers above focus solely on the probability of survival, not on the capacity to effectively govern. Leadership demands more than just physical endurance; it requires mental acuity and the ability to navigate complex challenges.
- Ken
Biden’s mental state is a huge worry. Honestly, I’d rather a candidate other than Trump too because of his age, but we rarely get what we want in life. DJT seems to be the one president in my lifetime who didn’t look significantly aged after his presidential term, at least . But then again, the stress he’s under now with all the lawfare would also bring most people to their knees and he seems to be handling it. But at some point his body will refuse to handle the high stress anymore. Can we please get the Boomers to retire already?
In a nightmare, A dark vision, the original Joe is in a freezer, saved for DNA samples if needed, and body doubles with Joe masks fill the Residency for ever.