Trump targeted by attacks about his age after speaking gaffes

WASHINGTON (TND) — Nikki Haley is hoping to persuade voters that former President Donald Trump is too old for another four-year term as she tries to beat him for the Republican nomination amid a series of recent speaking gaffes and slip-ups that she is trying to contrast herself with.

The 52-year-old former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador has hit Trump on multiple occasions over the last week in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary after he mixed up Haley and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during an event.

It wasn’t the first slip-up for Trump, who has regularly criticized Biden for making mistakes while speaking.

“He said multiple times that he ran against President Obama," Haley said at an event in New Hampshire this week. "These things happen because, guess what? When you’re 80, that’s what happens."

The line of attack will get its first test Tuesday as voters in New Hampshire decide between Trump and Haley in the Republican presidential primary. Polling running up to Election Day indicated Trump had a double-digit lead over Haley, but the removal of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from the race and a high share of independent voters in the state offers some chance for a surprise for her campaign.

Quips about age have been frequent in Haley’s campaign with frequent calls for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75, a shot at both Trump and President Joe Biden.

Trump claimed that he would beat Haley in a cognitive test in an interview on Fox News this week.

“Well, I think I’m a lot sharper than her. I would do this: I would sit down right now and take an aptitude test and it would be my result against her result, and she’s not going to win, not gonna even come close to winning,” he said in the interview.

Age is an issue that has dogged Biden’s campaign for months as he geared up for a reelection with concerns about him staying fit to do the job for another four years. Biden took office as the oldest president in U.S. history and recently turned 81.

It has also been the subject of attacks from Republicans, including Trump, to question his mental fitness to be the president whenever Biden misspeaks or has a moment appearing frail. Trump has frequently suggested that Biden doesn’t know where to exit the stage at events.

While voters have been well-aware and concerned about Biden’s age, they have had less issues with the 77-year-old Trump, who would be the second-oldest president to take office if he were to win a second term in 2024.

An August poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 77% of U.S. adults saw Biden as too old to be effective for four more years, which included 69% of Democrats. Just over half of adults at 51%, including just 28% of Republicans, said the same about Trump. A Monmouth University poll from October had similar findings, with 76% of voters saying Biden is too old to serve another term with 48% agreeing about Trump.

“Where Trump has an advantage is that baked-in perception of machismo,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. “That's what people have known about him. If you go back and look eight years ago versus now, he has slowed down. Boy, is he more quiet because that's what happens in eight years.

“But because that's the perception it’s very hard to get people to see out away from the preconceived notions that they have.”

The advanced age of the two party’s frontrunners has been referenced as a leading reason their challengers have entered the race. On the Republican side, Haley and DeSantis have both made critiques of sending men in their 80s to the White House and made calls for generational change. For Democrats, Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota is mounting a long-shot primary challenge to Biden and has frequently said the president’s age is one of the chief reasons.

Voters have also sought out generational change and frequently told pollsters that they don’t want Trump or Biden to be running in 2024.

Along with Haley, Democrats have also tried to flip the script on the age issue with Trump amid the gaffe about Jan. 6 and other slip-ups like saying he ran against former President Barack Obama.

Biden’s campaign account shared Haley’s digs on Trump’s age on X, formerly known as Twitter, as part of its push to highlight Trump missteps. More voters becoming aware of Trump’s slip-ups may limit the effect of the criticism of Biden as the country inches closer to a rematch between them.

“It will be effective to neutralize the ‘Joe Biden is old’ narrative that has absolutely permeated discussions about Joe Biden for the last year. It will be effective for people who are hesitant about Joe Biden because of his age, because this takes away any alternative,” Dagnes said.

But there are potential risks in Biden’s campaign drawing too much attention to Trump’s age and highlighting the president’s history of missteps and speech errors that have concerned voters about his potential second term.