Governor's Mansion to the White House

Since the beginning of the republic, governors have been strong candidates for the presidency.  Many candidates ran for office while governor.  Others had been governor but moved on to other positions, which then led them to the presidency.  Let's start by looking at governors who moved directly from the governor's mansion to the White House:

1. Rutherford B. Hayes was the governor of Ohio when he was elected in 1876.  Hayes actually lost the popular vote to Samuel Tilden and a contingent election was required to get him into office.  As Tilden won 51% of the votes to Hayes 48%, there needed to be some dealmaking to assure Hayes as the winner.  The deal that was struck ended Reconstruction.  Of note, Samuel Tilden was governor of New York, making this a governor v. governor election.

2. Grover Cleveland was governor of New York when he won election in 1884.  He was the first Democrat since James Buchanan to be elected president.

3. William McKinley was governor of Ohio when he was elected in 1896.  He was the last of a line of Ohioans elected to the presidency after the Civil War: US Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison.

4. Woodrow Wilson was governor of New Jersey when he was elected in 1912.  He owed his election - and the breaking of a decades long Republican lock on the presidency - to the party split caused by Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressive Party.  Wilson won with only 41% of the popular vote, but an electoral landslide.

5. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was governor of New York when he was elected in 1932.

6. Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas when he was elected in 1992.  Like Wilson, Clinton benefited from an unusually popular 3rd party candidate, Ross Perot.  He took 43% of the popular vote and an electoral landslide.

7. George W. Bush was governor of Texas when he was elected in 2000.  He was also the first son of a president to be elected since John Quincy Adams in 1824.

Many more presidents had governor on their resume but didn't happen to run a successful presidential campaign while governor.  Let's check out the former governors who captured the White House:

1. Thomas Jefferson was governor of Virginia (1779-1781) during the Revolutionary War.

2. James Monroe was governor of Virginia twice!  His first term was 1799 to 1802.  He was elected again almost a decade later but only served four months in 1811.  He was called upon by President James Madison to serve as Secretary of State, which he accepted.

3. Martin Van Buren was governor of New York for 43 days in 1829, the shortest term for New York governor.  He had run for governor while Andrew Jackson made his second attempt for the presidency.  Both won.  Jackson offered Secretary of State to Van Buren and he eagerly accepted.

4. William Henry Harrison was the governor of Indiana Territory for over a decade (1801-1812).  He was appointed by President John Adams, not elected.  While serving as governor, he led troops against Indians on the Tippecanoe River in 1811.  The Battle of Tippecanoe was still remembered when Harrison ran for president in 1840.

5. John Tyler was governor of Virginia (1825-1827) before being elected to the Senate and finally being selected to run with Harrison as the VP candidate.  He is the third and final Virginia governor to become president.

6. James Knox Polk was governor of Tennessee (1839-1841) but was defeated for re-election.  He sought to win back the governorship in 1843, but again suffered defeat.  It looked like his political career was at an end.  Then, out of the blue, he was selected to run for president in 1844 and won!

7. Andrew Johnson was governor of Tennessee (1853-1857).  From the governor's mansion, he went to the Senate.  During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln appointed Johnson to be the military governor of Tennessee, where he served until he became Lincoln's vice-president.

8. Theodore Roosevelt was governor of New York (1899-1900) before he was selected as McKinley's second vice-president.  In less than 5 years, Roosevelt had gone from Police Commissioner of NYC to Assistant Secretary of the Navy to Colonel of the Rough Riders to Governor of New York to Vice President of the United States to President.  It was a very busy time.

9. Calvin Coolidge was governor of Massachusetts (1919-1921) when he was selected to be Warren Harding's vice-president.

10. Jimmy Carter was governor of Georgia (1971-1975) when he announced his candidacy for president but was out of office when he won the 1976 election.  He is one of three US Presidents to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

11. Ronald Reagan was governor of California (1967-1975) and made a run for the presidency in 1976 but lost the primary to Gerald Ford.  He made a successful run in 1980.

Of the 45 presidents, 18 have been governors.  Executive experience at the state level is good training for the chief executive office in the land.