Donald Trump shares at least three traits with Ronald Reagan. 

Like “the Gipper,” Trump is a trained performer. He may not memorize scripts as well as Reagan, but Trump appears to be better at improvisation. 

Second, the unnatural color of both men’s hair is proof that orange is not a good accent.

Third, is their age. If Trump is elected next year, which is admittedly a big “if,” he would supplant Reagan as the oldest man ever elected president. 

Trump may not look it, but on Inauguration Day 2017 he will be 70½, nearly eight months older than Reagan, who was 19 days shy of his 70th birthday at his 1981 inaugural.

Republican Trump isn’t the oldest candidate this time. That distinction goes to Democrat Bernie Sanders, who was born in 1941 and will 75 years old on Jan. 20, 2017, when the next president takes office. 

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton isn’t far behind Trump in age. She will be 69 on inauguration day, roughly nine months younger than Reagan when he began his eight years in the White House.

Because Clinton has been in the race longer and at a higher level, she was the first to face the age question. NationalJournal.com raised the issue in an April 23, 2014, article that carried the headline “Why You Can’t Compare Hillary Clinton’s Age to Ronald Reagan’s.”

Authors Stephanie Stamm and Patrick Reis presented actuarial statistics showing that Clinton has a life expectancy of 86, or 17 years beyond inauguration day 2017. They said similar data showed that Reagan on inauguration day 1981 had a life expectancy of 81, although he survived to the age of 93.

The National Journal article noted that “Reagan’s final years were spent living with Alzheimer’s,” but it did not address the question of whether his age affected his final years in office.

Shortly after the National Journal article appeared, Byron York, a columnist for the Washington Examiner wrote a follow-up, in which he noted that age also dogged the candidacies of Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008. 

York looked at how Reagan’s 1980 and 1984 campaigns handled the age question, which was a genuine concern until the 73-year-old Reagan famously dispatched it in 1984 by quipping during a debate with Democrat Walter Mondale: “I will not make age an issue. … I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” 

Reagan biographer Craig Shirley told York: “The ‘age issue,’ as it became known beginning in early 1979, developed into an enormous problem for Reagan.”

It was particularly troublesome during the Iowa caucuses, where George H.W. Bush took the lead when Reagan was viewed as giving fumbling, half-hearted performances. 

“Polling showed pluralities and majorities opposed to Reagan based on his age, especially when asked if they would support a man who would be 70 years of age one month after his inauguration,” Shirley said.

Reagan turned things around after losing the Iowa caucuses “by going out and campaigning ferociously and demonstrating his vitality,” Shirley told York.

Age is not an issue for Clinton now, but York predicted it will be. When that happens, he wrote in April 2014, Clinton has already shown that she has a strategy for defusing it. During an appearance before an audience of college students in Boston, he said, Clinton talked about the different effects aging has on men and women. 

When men reach her age, Clinton said, they’ve already had a long career, and most are ready to retire, play golf and enjoy life.

But women, she said, “are raring to go because they feel like they’ve fulfilled their responsibilities, their kids are now on their own, and it’s now time for them to show what they can do.”