On Nov. 3, Rhode Island voters will be greeted by familiar names on their general ballots: U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) has been the Democratic nominee for Senate since 1996, while both U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I. 1) and U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner ’06 (D-R.I. 2) have represented the state since 2023.
The Herald spoke with professors and advocates to understand how incumbency, a lack of competition and a nationwide system of gerontocracy fuel the campaigns of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation.
Incumbent advantage and the United States’s congressional gerontocracy
Across the country, voters repeatedly reelect members of Congress into their old age despite frustration with the age of their legislators.
“While more than half of humanity lives under political leaders over age 70, America is special among democracies for how old its federal politicians are,” Samuel Moyn — professor of law and history at Yale Law School and author of a book on gerontocracy — wrote in an email to The Herald.
Reed is currently 76 years old and has served in Congress since 1991. Rhode Island’s other senator, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is not up for reelection this year, is 71 years old.
This year, Reed was challenged in his September primary by two candidates — including the progressive Connor Burbridge, who framed his campaign as a young first-time politician hoping to triumph over his more establishment opponent. But Reed emerged victorious with just under 77% of the vote.
“It’s an old truism that in most parts of the country, if you get elected to Congress once, you essentially have a job for life unless you do something terrible,” said Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs.
From the war in Iraq to the current war in Iran, Reed has “been a point person in the Democratic caucus” on foreign policy matters, according to Adam Myers, an associate professor of political science at Providence College. Meanwhile, Whitehouse “has distinguished himself on the Judiciary Committee in his sharp questioning of judicial nominees and in his criticism of the Supreme Court.”
“When you think you’re truly indispensable, it would almost be treasonous to retire, and I think that’s the mindset that some of our older legislators fall into,” Kinzer added.
Neither Reed nor Whitehouse responded to The Herald’s requests for comment.
To Moyn, the clear issue with gerontocracy is “the risk of cognitive decline or outright death.” But “the deeper objection” is how these older federal politicians are unrepresentative of the people they represent, Moyn wrote.
“Half of Americans are under 40, but almost no officeholders are,” he added.
Giving space to people with new ideas is important, Kizner said. He explained that while younger people have been shaped “by the forces that formed today’s world,” older people “were formed in a way that prepared them to confront a world that no longer exists.”
Still, he noted that there are benefits to having older lawmakers in office. Not only is continuity important in Congress, but the “accumulated wisdom” of age is “essential to shaping government policy,” he told The Herald.
“One might say that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Myers said. “It looks like a lot of Rhode Islanders think that our two senators are doing a good job and that their experience has actually been an asset.”
Uncontested primaries and uncompetitive general elections
According to John Marion — executive director of government reform nonprofit Common Cause Rhode Island — gerontocracy is “a symptom of a system that lacks enough competition.”
Both R.I. representatives ran unopposed in their primaries this year.
To Siraj Sindhu GS, executive director of housing justice organization Reclaim Rhode Island and a current Ph.D. candidate at Brown, both Amo and Magaziner represent a traditional form of the Rhode Island Democratic Party that “has been extraordinarily powerful for many years.” Sindhu attributed the representatives’ lack of opposition in the primaries to this system.
Sindhu added that it is frustrating to see members of Congress “face such a relatively thin test in their primary elections.”
In response to criticisms about lack of competition, spokesperson for Rep. Magaziner Noah Boucher wrote to The Herald that Magaziner “decisively won a five-way Democratic primary election in 2022 by a 38-point margin, in addition to two general elections.”
Neither the Rhode Island Democratic Party nor Amo responded to The Herald’s requests for comment.
Beyond the uncontested primaries, Myers’s main concern lies with the lack of competition in the general election given its much higher voter turnout. Since Rhode Island is strongly Democratic, Republicans “can’t really mount a competitive challenge to long-serving incumbents,” Myers said.
“It would be better for democracy if we had genuine two-party or multi-party competition in Rhode Island,” he said.
Paths towards greater representation, competition
Experts and advocates have proposed differing solutions to address these issues.
While some have suggested setting congressional term limits, Marion cautioned against this solution because it addresses “the simple symptom of the problem” rather than its root cause, a lack of competition.
Kinzer said that he hopes there will be more youthful elected officials across the country, as more young individuals begin to take up local and state offices.
In primaries across Rhode Island, incumbents were particularly vulnerable this year. On the state level, Gov. Dan McKee lost to former CVS executive Helena Foulkes, making him the first incumbent governor in Rhode Island to lose a reelection primary since 1994. McKee was also the first incumbent governor of any state to lose a primary in eight years.
In Providence, Rep. David Morales MPA’19 beat Mayor Brett Smiley to become the first challenger to unseat an incumbent in the mayoral primary in city history. If elected in November, he will be the youngest mayor of Providence ever.
The mayoral election “shows not just that a young person can get elected, but that a young person can mobilize an entire army of other young people,” Kinzer said. “That is an encouraging fact in a political landscape today that is otherwise not so encouraging.”
Reclaim RI was a key part of the grassroots effort that helped elect Morales and other progressive candidates in local primaries, Sindhu said.
Over the next few years, Sindhu said that Reclaim R.I. plans to consider expanding their organizing mission statewide.
But Myers noted that influencing federal races requires greater organization and money than shaping local elections.
“In the past, progressive groups in Providence and Rhode Island have not shown that they can build an organization that durably changes the electoral map in the state” beyond “periodic victories here and there,” Myers said.
“Maybe they’re large enough now that they can do it. It’s possible, but the jury’s still out,” he said.
Talia Katz is a senior staff writer covering city hall and crime.
