|
Highest previous position |
2020 candidates |
Presidents elected |
Most recently elected |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Senator |
|
7 |
2008 |
|
House member |
|
2 |
1880 |
|
Governor |
|
10 |
2000 |
|
Mayor |
|
0 |
(never) |
|
No political or military experience |
|
1 |
2016 |
|
Cabinet member |
|
6 |
1928 |
|
Vice president |
|
5 |
1988 |
|
General officer |
4 |
1952 |
Notes: Does not include the nine vice presidents who assumed the presidency after the death or resignation of the previous president. While some rankings are self-explanatory — senator is a higher position than representative, and governor is higher than mayor — others are somewhat subjective. From highest to lowest, we ranked the positions as follows: vice president, cabinet member, governor or senator, House member, mayor. No tiebreakers were needed between governor and senator.
You’ve never seen a House member elected president. Neither have your parents — nor, in all likelihood, their parents. The last time it happened, there were 38 states and electricity was a novelty.
The year was 1880, the congressman James Garfield. The 14 decades since are littered with the failed campaigns of House members who thought they could replicate his feat.
But that hasn’t stopped six more from trying this year, a full quarter of the Democratic field.
As for what Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, the most recent addition to the candidate throng, is trying to do: Well, no one has ever done it. Never in American history has a sitting mayor been elected president, or even received a major party’s nomination. But three — Mr. de Blasio, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and Wayne Messam of Miramar, Fla. — are running now.
In 2016, when Republicans had a field almost as big as the Democrats do now, it included no House members or mayors. Of the 17 candidates, nine were sitting or former governors, and five were sitting or former senators.
But, of course, all those governors and senators lost to Donald J. Trump, who had no political experience at all. Before Mr. Trump was elected, no one had ever become president without a background in government or the military. Now, it’s harder to say what the bar is — or whether voters care.
The highest previous position of each U.S. president, by date of first election
No government
or military
No government
or military
No government
or military
No government
or military
*Does not include those who assumed the presidency after the death or resignation of the previous president.
As the chart above shows, a small number of offices have produced the vast majority of our presidents. A governorship is the most common steppingstone. This year, though, only three of the 23 Democratic candidates are (or were) governors, and all of them are trailing in polls.
While the vice presidency might seem the most obvious launching pad for the presidency, only five people have done what Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to do now: get elected after completing his vice presidency. Fourteen presidents were previously vice presidents, but nine of them took over when a president died or resigned. (Four of those nine went on to win a full term.)
Cabinet secretaries were elected president much more often in the early days of the republic than they are now. Hillary Clinton came close in 2016. But of the six presidents whose highest previous office was in the cabinet, four were elected before 1850, and the most recent, Herbert Hoover, was elected almost 100 years ago.
Senators occupy an interesting space in modern presidential history: frequently nominated but rarely elected. Since 1960, Americans have elected only two senators — John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama — to the presidency, but five more received their party’s nomination. This year, however, seven are running for the Democratic nomination, and most of the front-runners are among them.
By the time you get down to the House, the history is paper-thin, and thinner still for rank-and-file members. Garfield, the last House member elected, was a committee chairman.
But the six 2020 candidates in this category have one thing going for them: They are not the least experienced in the pack.
Two of their competitors, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang, are following a path on which nobody but Mr. Trump has been successful: They are running for president with no political or military experience at all.
Highest previous position of all U.S. presidents
|
President |
First took office |
Highest previous position |
|---|---|---|
|
George Washington |
1789 |
General |
|
John Adams |
1797 |
Vice President |
|
Thomas Jefferson |
1801 |
Vice President |
|
James Madison |
1809 |
Cabinet |
|
James Monroe |
1817 |
Cabinet |
|
John Quincy Adams |
1825 |
Cabinet |
|
Andrew Jackson |
1829 |
Senate |
|
Martin Van Buren |
1837 |
Vice President |
|
William Henry Harrison |
1841 |
Senate |
|
John Tyler |
1841 |
Vice President* |
|
James K. Polk |
1845 |
Governor |
|
Zachary Taylor |
1849 |
Major general |
|
Millard Fillmore |
1850 |
Vice President* |
|
Franklin Pierce |
1853 |
Senate |
|
James Buchanan |
1857 |
Cabinet |
|
Abraham Lincoln |
1861 |
House |
|
Andrew Johnson |
1865 |
Vice President* |
|
Ulysses S. Grant |
1869 |
General** |
|
Rutherford B. Hayes |
1877 |
Governor |
|
James Garfield |
1881 |
House |
|
Chester Arthur |
1881 |
Vice President* |
|
Grover Cleveland |
1885 |
Governor |
|
Benjamin Harrison |
1889 |
Senate |
|
William McKinley |
1897 |
Governor |
|
Theodore Roosevelt |
1901 |
Vice President* |
|
William Howard Taft |
1909 |
Cabinet |
|
Woodrow Wilson |
1913 |
Governor |
|
Warren G. Harding |
1921 |
Senate |
|
Calvin Coolidge |
1923 |
Vice President* |
|
Herbert Hoover |
1929 |
Cabinet |
|
Franklin D. Roosevelt |
1933 |
Governor |
|
Harry S. Truman |
1945 |
Vice President* |
|
Dwight Eisenhower |
1953 |
General |
|
John F. Kennedy |
1961 |
Senate |
|
Lyndon B. Johnson |
1963 |
Vice President* |
|
Richard Nixon |
1969 |
Vice President |
|
Gerald Ford |
1974 |
Vice President* |
|
Jimmy Carter |
1977 |
Governor |
|
Ronald Reagan |
1981 |
Governor |
|
George Bush |
1989 |
Vice President |
|
Bill Clinton |
1993 |
Governor |
|
George W. Bush |
2001 |
Governor |
|
Barack Obama |
2009 |
Senate |
|
Donald Trump |
2017 |
No political or military experience |
*Nine vice presidents assumed the presidency after the death or resignation of the president.
**Ulysses S. Grant served briefly as acting secretary of war, a cabinet position, from August 1867 to January 1868, but was never confirmed to that position.
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