If Democrats are looking for fresh, new faces, why are these septuagenarian white guys so popular?

WASHINGTON - After congressional elections in which Democrats in record numbers chose to elevate women, minority and gay candidates, casting ballots for diversity and youth in district after district, the list of presidential hopefuls most exciting to Democratic voters is a bit curious.

At the top, several polls indicate, is a septuagenarian white guy synonymous with the party establishment - Joe Biden.

Next is another 70-plus white man whose trouble connecting with black voters hurt his last presidential run - Bernie Sanders.

And just behind them in the early polls is yet another white elected official, albeit a younger one - Beto O'Rourke.

Even if early voter surveys are a limited indicator of where the race is going - measuring the familiarity of candidate names as much as anything - the sustained popularity of these straight white men is hard to overlook.