If Mitt Romney wins in November, will he be the first Senator that was a governor of a different state? Has there ever been someone elected governor after being a Senator from a different state?
No, it wouldn’t be the first time it happened. Sam Houston was elected to the Senate from Texas and Governor of Texas about twenty years after he had been Governor of Tennessee (and, before that, a member of the House of Representatives from Tennessee). Off the top of my head, I don’t know if anyone was elected Governor of a state after serving in the Senate from a different state, but one of the early Governors of California, John B. Weller, had served in the House of Representatives from Ohio earlier in his career, and there are other examples of that happening (including Sam Houston again).
There are also other instances of people serving in Congress from more than one state or holding various offices in different states, especially in the 19th Century with the territorial governments. Two of the more interesting ones that come to mind: James Shields, who once nearly fought a duel with Abraham Lincoln, and actually served in the U.S. Senate from three different states, and Edward Livingston, whose brother administered the oath of office to George Washington at the first Presidential inauguration in 1789, and whose resume included serving in the House of Representatives from New York, as Mayor of New York City, as a member of the Louisiana State Legislature, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana, as a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and as Secretary of State and U.S. Minister to France under President Jackson.
