Over two thirds of Americans, including a significant chunk of Republicans, think that Donald Trump has become “erratic” in his old age, a new poll has found.
Overall, 61 percent of respondents to the survey, conducted by Reuters/ Ipsos said that the 79-year-old president had “become erratic with age.” This included 30 percent of Republicans who were questioned.
Some 89 percent of Democrats agreed with the sentiment, as did 64 percent of independent voters, compared with 30 percent of Republicans.
The poll was conducted in the days leading up to Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday, which has followed months of angry outbursts and rebukes of various lawmakers, judges and journalists on both sides of the political aisle.
Trump began his second term in office at age 78, becoming the oldest president on inauguration day in history – narrowly beating his predecessor Joe Biden.
Since then, he has unveiled new policies, proposals and executive orders at an unrelenting pace, with sweeping tariffs imposed on imports from dozens of countries, while masked federal agents have been deployed to carry out heavy-handed crackdowns on immigration across the country.
Many of his announcements and press briefings have often descended into off-topic, rally-style speeches about his achievements.
Trump also frequently uses his social media platform Truth Social to lash out at various individuals, one of the most recent examples being an attack on Supreme Court Justices, after the nation’s highest court ruled his global tariff policies were illegal.
“They’re against anything that makes America strong, healthy and great again. They are also frankly a disgrace to our nation, those justices,” he said following the decision. “They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.”
Back in November, the president described Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Mark Kelly, who urged members of the U.S. military to refuse any illegal orders as “traitors,” and suggested they could face execution.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the Reuters/ Ipsos poll results were examples of “fake and desperate narratives” and that “Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility” set him apart from Biden.
The Reuters/ Ipso poll found that Americans generally agree that their leaders are too old. Some 79 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “elected officials in Washington, D.C., are too old to represent most Americans.” The average age in the U.S. Senate is about 64, and in the U.S. House of Representatives, it’s 58.
Democratic respondents were slightly more likely to call for younger politicians, with 58 percent of them saying top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, 75, was too old to work in government.
Biden, who was 82 by the time he stepped down from his re-election campaign in 2024, was often blasted by Republicans over his age, who argued that he was not mentally equipped to hold the office of Commander-in-Chief. When he dropped out of the race, Biden was older than any president in U.S. history.
Trump is currently on track to beat that record and will be 80 in June.
Despite the White House’s insistence, only 45 percent of respondents in the February poll said they would describe Trump as “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” down from 54 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in September 2023.
However, 81 percent of Republicans described the president that way, with little changed from the 2023 survey.
