Presidents: Highest office before elected

Monday, January 13, 2014 - 17:00 By Chuck Springston

Teddy Roosevelt was New York's governor before becoming president.

Image: Louis Dalrymple, Puck magazine/Library of Congress.

Donald Trump is the first president to have no previous government service, civilian or military, at any level.

Here is a list of U.S. presidents organized by the highest office they previously held, excluding the vice presidency.
Also noted are examples of other major national offices and leadership positions they held. A president generally regarded among the top 20 is marked with asterisk.

U.S. senator

*1. James Monroe; also Articles of Confederation Congress, secretary of state, secretary of war
*2. John Quincy Adams; also secretary of state, House of Representatives (after serving as president)
*3. Andrew Jackson; also House of Representatives, Army general
4. Franklin Pierce; also House of Representatives, Army general
5. James Buchanan; also House of Representatives, secretary of state
6. Benjamin Harrison; also Army general
7. Warren G. Harding
*8. Harry S. Truman; also vice president
*9. John F. Kennedy; also House of Representatives
*10. Lyndon B. Johnson; also House of Representatives, vice president
11. Richard Nixon; also House of Representatives, vice president
12. Barack Obama

Governor
*1. Thomas Jefferson; also secretary of state, vice president
*2. James K. Polk; also House of Representatives
3. Rutherford B. Hayes; also House of Representatives, Army general
*4. Grover Cleveland
*5. William McKinley; also House of Representatives
*6. Theodore Roosevelt; also vice president
*7. Woodrow Wilson; also president of Princeton University
8. Calvin Coolidge; also vice president
*9. Franklin D. Roosevelt
10. Jimmy Carter
*11. Ronald Reagan; also president of the Screen Actors Guild
*12. Bill Clinton
13. George W. Bush

Governor and senator

1. Martin Van Buren; senator, then governor, secretary of state and vice president
2. William Henry Harrison; governor of Indiana Territory, then House of Representatives, senator; also Army general
3. John Tyler; House of Representatives, then governor, senator, vice president
4. Andrew Johnson; House of Representatives, then governor, senator, vice president; also Army general

Federal agency head

*1. James Madison, secretary of state; also Continental Congress, House of Representatives
2. Chester A. Arthur, collector of the Port of New York; also Army general, vice president
3. William Howard Taft, secretary of war; also governor-general of the Philippines and the Supreme Court’s chief justice (after serving as president)
4. Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce
5. George H.W. Bush, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, CIA director; also House of Representatives, vice president

Continental Congress/U.S. House of Representatives

*1. John Adams; also vice president
2. Millard Fillmore; also vice president
*3. Abraham Lincoln
4. James A. Garfield; Army general, also principal (president) of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in Hiram, Ohio (now Hiram College)
5. Gerald R. Ford, also vice president

Army general

*1. George Washington; also Continental Congress, chairman of Constitutional Convention
2. Zachary Taylor
3. Ulysses S. Grant
*4. Dwight D. Eisenhower, also president of Columbia University

No government experience

1. Donald Trump, chairman and president, The Trump Organization, a real estate development and entertainment company

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