On Tuesday night, Kentucky voters overwhelmingly nominated a 23-term House incumbent, who controls a pot of more than $80 billion in federal funds, to another term — that would end when he’s 91.

Idaho voters nominated a powerful 14-term incumbent, who oversees funding for national parks and other Interior Department issues, to a term that will end when he is 78 years old. And, finally, more than two-thirds of Idaho voters nominated to the Senate the incumbent chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations, essentially granting him another six-year term that would end when he’s 89.

All Democrats? Think again. Those elderly incumbents are Republicans: Reps. Hal Rogers of Kentucky and Idaho’s Rep. Mike Simpson and Sen. Jim Risch.

While Democrats have been engaged in a more bitter generational fight and received more media attention for it — take, for example, former President Joe Biden, former Sen. Dianne Feinstein and D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton — some Republicans say their party, which is led by soon-to-be 80-year-old Donald Trump, the oldest president to be inaugurated, has its own “age problem.”

Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, 69, chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said the House GOP needs to impose more stringent term limits as part of a generational change to prevent lawmakers from taking up top committee posts for a decade or more.

“Yeah, it’s a problem, and we deal with it better than the Democrats, but not perfectly,” said Harris, who is in his eighth term in Congress yet still has 10 more senior Republicans ahead of him on the House Appropriations Committee.

House Republicans impose a strict six-year limit on lawmakers serving as chairs or as ranking members when their party’s in the minority. Harris believes the term limit rule is too loose, allowing some members to jump from leading one committee to another. Reps. Michael McCaul of Texas and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina have chaired two committees each in the last 15 years. Democrats, on the other hand, place no limit on the terms atop the legislative committees, which has long irked the younger generation in their caucus as critical panels like Appropriations, Financial Services and Ways and Means are helmed by Democrats over the age of 75.

Rogers — who at 88 years old is the oldest non-retiring member of Congress — hit his six-year term limit almost a decade ago chairing the full House Appropriations Committee, but he has since used his seniority to jump from overseeing one subcommittee to another.

“You’re limited to six years, but then you can go to another subcommittee. You can go to an infinite number of subcommittees. I think that is a problem,” Harris said.

But for other Republicans, the term limit rule is enough to keep the top the committee post turning over new leaders and promoting junior members upward — at least in comparison to the Democrats.

One House Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, told NOTUS that occasionally, “you’ll hear people talk about, ‘Oh, I got to get a waiver’” in order to get around the term limit. But overall, the lawmaker said, “I haven’t seen a lot of angst around people just like camping on those leadership positions.”

A second House Republican, who also asked for anonymity, joked: “I’d hate to be a Democrat. … You gotta be here for decades to get a gavel. It’s crazy.”

Of the 17 House lawmakers who are 80 or older, 13 are Democrats. One of them, Rep. Maxine Waters, who is 87 and is running for reelection in California, is on track to become the oldest chair in the history of the House Financial Services Committee. When asked who she saw as her likely successor at a Semafor discussion panel on Wednesday, she said, “I don’t think we should talk about whether or not we should give up the mantle. … I’m not moving.”

But of the remaining Democratic octogenarians, six have already announced they will not run for reelection, and three others might lose their seats due to eventual redistricting.

In the Senate, Republicans are clearly the older party. Three of the four oldest senators are Republicans, including Risch and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, who will turn 93 in September. Of 37 senators who are 70 or older, 21 are Republicans. They say running for reelection is a personal decision between them and their voters.

“Very individual to everyone,” Risch said Thursday, touting his Tuesday nomination with 67% support from voters in every county. “They have appreciated the steady hand that I’ve had over the time that I’ve been in there.”

Meanwhile, all four House Republican octogenarians — Rogers, Foxx, Rep. John Carter of Texas and Rep. Jim Baird of Indiana — are running for another term.

There are 35 House Republicans who are at least 70 years old, including five of the six most senior GOP appropriators. Only a dozen House Republicans are 39 years old or younger.

“I definitely think that we ought to make sure that the party is open and welcoming to young people. Candidly, it has been very much for me. I’m the youngest Republican at the conference, and I haven’t had, in my opinion, any issues with my colleagues,” 32-year-old Republican Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas told NOTUS

Republican Rep. Pat Harrigan, 38, of North Carolina told NOTUS that generational change is already underway.

“We’re seeing that the next generation is stepping up to lead and saying, ‘Hey, we don’t necessarily love all the things that the former generation has chosen to do and hasn’t necessarily set our generation up for success,’” Harrigan said.

Harrigan added: “We have $40 trillion worth of sovereign debt that the last generation used to generate a significant amount of personal wealth for themselves when they figured out how to make themselves money.”

Generational dynamics have come into play in some Republican primaries. California Reps. Young Kim, 63, and Ken Calvert, 72, are two incumbents duking it out in a somewhat age-related battle for a recently redistricted seat. Kim has released attack ads targeting Calvert for his age and tenure, posting on X that “for over 34 years, Ken Calvert has built a RINO [Republican in name only] record.”

Voters, Kim told NOTUS, “are looking for new leadership.”

“One thing that I hear over and over is that, ‘Oh, he’s the one who’s been in Congress for more than three decades,’” Kim continued. “That’s what people are saying: 34 years in Congress is a long time, and I’ve been in Congress just three terms.”

Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida, 38, admitted that the younger House Republicans are “always thinking about” the age dynamics. But, she said, “we’re really changing how we message. We’re helping leadership change how they message, working to find ways to reach people where they’re at.”

It isn’t limited to messaging and thinking, Cammack said. It’s about finding policies that resonate with young people, too.

Cammack referenced her bill called The Nest Act, a tax-free savings account for first-time homebuyers, and noted she’s “a new mom with a nine-month-old,” and pushed for new investment accounts for citizens under 18 years old called “Trump Accounts.”

“When I talk to my friends from college and high school, many of them have not been able to purchase their first home,” Cammack said. “So we’re always looking at ways that we can help millennials and Gen Zs achieve their version of the American dream.”

Republican Rep. Brian Jack, 38, of Georgia has been in Congress for about a year and a half. As a freshman, he’s already a subcommittee chair, deputy chair for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and sits on the powerful House Republican Steering Committee, where he helped over a quarter of House Republicans’ 2025 freshman class gain spots on the three most coveted House committees.

Granted, Jack’s fast rise in the House may have something to do with his close ties to President Donald Trump, having worked as White House political director during the first Trump administration and then as a senior adviser in Trump’s 2024 campaign.

He says Republican leaders understand they need to appeal to younger voters with younger candidates, explaining why they’ve promoted him into junior leadership posts so quickly.

“I’ve been given a chance to step into a leadership role, and it helps me when I recruit candidates.” Jack told NOTUS. “I’m getting to do that as a freshman. I’m not having to wait.”