If Bernie Sanders succeeds in his bid for the presidency, which he confirmed on Wednesday, he will be the oldest person ever to be elected president. The junior senator from Vermont will turn 75 two months before the 2016 general election–if he were to win the nomination (one leading online gambling site puts the odds of that happening at 50-to-1.)
The person most likely to stand in Sanders’s way, Hillary Clinton, will be 69 on the day of the generation election. Only Ronald Reagan was older when first elected.
In fact, the 2016 nomination fight currently looks like a teachers-versus-students charity basketball game. The Republicans who have declared their candidacy consist of two people who would be 45 when elected–Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio–and Rand Paul, who at 53 would still be on the young side for a president.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- L.A. Fires Show Reality of 1.5°C of Warming
- Behind the Scenes of The White Lotus Season Three
- How Trump 2.0 Is Already Sowing Confusion
- Bad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album
- How to Get Better at Doing Things Alone
- We’re Lucky to Have Been Alive in the Age of David Lynch
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- Column: All Those Presidential Pardons Give Mercy a Bad Name
Write to Chris Wilson at chris.wilson@time.com