Moose Droppings: Election, Part I

Senior senator from Arizona, John McCain, vs. junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

An e-mail from an American friend living abroad came today, asking about U.S. senators who were also presidents.

I told him I would answer here; a classroom of one can be so boring.

Fifteen men held both offices. Andrew Johnson, being the only one to serve after his presidency, was elected senator from Tennessee in 1874, five years after leaving the White House.

Twelve men served as senators prior to their presidency, but were not holding that office when elected:

James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Benjamin Harrison
Harry Truman
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon

Leaving two: Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy as the only two men to be elected president while serving as a U.S. senator.

A morbid note for the overly superstitious: neither Harding nor Kennedy finished his term of office.

And though not asked, but certainly thought about: congressmen?

In total, nineteen men have held both the presidency and a seat in the House of Representatives: Eighteen prior to becoming president and one, John Q. Adams, after leaving the White House.

The other eighteen are:

James Buchanan
George H. W. Bush
Millard Fillmore
Gerald Ford
James Garfield
William Harrison
Rutherford Hayes
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Johnson
Lyndon Johnson
John Kennedy
Abraham Lincoln
James Madison
Richard Nixon
William McKinley
Franklin Pierce
James Polk
John Tyler

Polk has the distinction of being the only Speaker of the House to later become president.

Also, Garfield is the sole sitting congressman to be elected president. He was also elected a U.S. senator during the same election. He opted for the presidency.

It should be noted that he too did not finish out his term.