Based on historical patterns, the next president is likely to be a Gen Xer.  This is not good news for the many baby boomers running, or thinking about running, in 2016.

When voters decide it is time to move the presidency on to the next generation, they keep electing presidents in that next generation, or they go on to the one that follows.  They do not go back.  Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were from the baby boomer generation.  Barack Obama is from the Gen X generation (those born 1961 to 1981).  If the pattern holds, the next president will also be a Gen Xer.

There are two exceptions in the history of our presidents.  Zachary Taylor, president from 1849 to 1850, was a throwback, as was James Buchanan, president from 1857 to 1861.  By the 2016 election, it will have been 160 years since voters elected a president from a generation that preceded the sitting president.

I first heard about this pattern at a lecture on the work of Neil Howe and William Strauss, the co-authors of several books on generational theory and generational change in America.

At first hearing, Ronald Reagan came to mind.  How does he fit the pattern, assuming the presidency at age 69?  The pattern is the change from members of one generation to the next, not the age of individual presidents.  For example, Howe and Strauss identify those born 1901 to 1924 as members of the G.I. generation.  That generation produced 7 presidents: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.

In 1992, voters pushed on to the next generation, electing a baby boomer in Bill Clinton.  In 2000, voters stayed with a baby boomer in George W. Bush and then in 2008 pushed on to the next generation with Barack Obama.  John McCain, born in 1936 and a member of the Silent generation (those born 1925 to 1942), was fighting, unsuccessfully, against the historical pattern.

The 2016 baby boomer candidates are also running against this precedent by asking voters to look back a generation: Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Elizabeth Warren, Jim Webb, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum.  Two other possible candidates, silent generation members Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, want voters to strain their necks even more, looking back two generations.

For 2016 Gen X candidates, there is only one Democrat on the current list, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.  On the Republican side, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, and Scott Walker are all in the right spot, generationally speaking, to pick up the torch.  Thinking about the first woman president in this context?  Look to the Gen X or Millennial generations.

Wall Street types always hedge their predictions with the phrase “past performance is no guarantee of future results.”  That applies to presidential elections as well.  But the idea that we move forward with each of our new presidents, and rarely go back, strikes me as a very American way of doing things.