Can a Mayor Take the White House?

Quick: When is the last time a sitting mayor was nominated for president by a major party?

If you said DeWitt Clinton in 1812, you nailed it. The New York City mayor lost to incumbent James Madison, becoming the first and last politician to vie for the White House directly from City Hall. Fellow New York City mayor John Lindsay tried in 1972, but bowed out early in the primaries. In 2008, another NYC mayor, Rudy Giuliani, had a similarly early exit (though his run was several years after he’d left office). In fact, the only president to have ever been a mayor of a major city, Grover Cleveland of Buffalo, was New York governor in between. (Calvin Coolidge briefly served as mayor of the town of Northampton, Massachusetts.*) Throughout American history, the road to the White House has not proceeded down an urban boulevard. Most presidents are drawn from the Senate or governorships, but today just six senators and five governors was ever a mayor.