The Top 50 Longest-Serving Governors of All Time

11 Comments

1. Iowa Is Awesome on May 23, 2013 at 9:40 am

   I thought George Clinton was the longest serving Governor in U.S. History–not Branstad. On July 9 1777, New York elects Brigadier General George Clinton as the first governor of the independent state of New York. Clinton would go on to become New York’s longest-serving governor, as well as the longest-serving governor in the United States, holding the post until 1795, and again from 1801 to 1804. In 1805, he was elected vice president of the United States, a position he held under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, until his death in 1812

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   • Eric Ostermeier on May 23, 2013 at 9:47 am

     As noted at the beginning of the report and in the table, this report only examines governors of states from the post U.S. Constitutional period:

     “Note: This study compiles data of governors of states in the post-U.S. Constitutional period, and hence does not count several years of service of New York’s George Clinton, who governed for more than a decade of his 20+ years before statehood.”

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2. daniel catlin on December 6, 2013 at 7:50 am

   I feel like you could add 2 more years for wallace. In alabama at the time you could not secede yourself, he got his wife to run and she was “Governor” 1967 until her death in 1968

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   • kushibo on August 8, 2014 at 5:44 pm

     I did not know that about Lurleen Wallace (George Wallace’s wife) becoming governor herself. Thanks for the information.

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3. Mark on March 10, 2014 at 6:12 pm

   Peter Coleman served twelve years as governor of American Samoa spanning 1956 to 1993–the only person to serve as U.S. governor in 5 different decades

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4. Fred on October 13, 2014 at 10:11 am

   Peter Coleman actually served 15 years 7 months as governor of American Samoa and would be number seven on this chart if the territories were included. He is the only person ever from a state or a territory, pre- or post-Constitution, whose service spanned five decades.

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   • Ima Virginian on September 24, 2015 at 10:36 am

     I’m not trying to one-up you or anyone!

     But–George Hamilton, the Earl of Orkney, was Governor of Virginia (although absentee) 1698 -1737.

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5. Michael Hardy on July 17, 2015 at 3:10 pm

   Thomas Chittenden was governor of the state of Vermont for 11 consecutive years and later for almost 7 consecutive years, ending when he died in office.

   Unlike nearly all of the 37 states admitted in addition to the original 13, Vermont did not achieve statehood when it was admitted to the Union: it was already a state before its admission. On the day of admission to the Union, March 4, 1791, Governor Chittenden did not begin a new term as governor of a new entity, the State-of-Vermomt-within-the-Union, after serving as governor of the State-of-Vermont-outside-the-Union, rather he simply continued the one-year term of office as governor of the State of Vermont that he had begun in the autumn of 1790. Go to Google and read the act of Congress admitting Vermont to the Union. It doesn’t say a territory or a part of one petitioned Congress to be granted statehood; rather it says the state [sic] of Vermont had petitioned Congress for admission to the Union. No new state was created, but a state outside the Union became a state within the Union. Its existence as a state for the preceding 14 years was given retroactive recognition. Indeed, one finds a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1933 treating a statute of the Vermont legislature passed nine years before admission to the Union as valid state legislation. (This closed the case of Vermont vs. New Hampshire, in which the former state wanted the boundary to be the thread of the channel of the Connecticut River rather than the west bank of the river. Vermont lost and the boundary today is still the west bank, one of three such exceptions among U.S. state boundaries.)

   But of course this is not “post-Constitutional”; the U.S. Constitution did not apply in Vermont before March 4, 1791 because it was a foreign state. It is interesting to note that when Congress passed a bill in February 4, 1791 admitting Kentucky to the Union as of nearly 16 months later, it carefully noted that the Virginia legislature had consented to the district of Kentucky within the state of Virginia becoming a separate state, but when on February 18, 1791, they admitted Vermont as of only two weeks later on March 4, they made not mention at all of the fact that the legislature of New York had consented to the admission of a state within territory they had controversially claimed as theirs. The New York legislature passed that bill on March 6, 1790.)

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6. Ima Virginian on September 24, 2015 at 10:32 am

   As an aside (understanding clearly that this is a list of post-colonial period), George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney, was the Governor of Virginia 1698-1737. I wonder if there are any other official Governors who served longer?

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7. argent facile on October 18, 2016 at 1:59 pm

   An impressive share! I have just forwarded thiss
   onto a colleague who has been conducting a little
   research on this. And he actually bought me lunch because I
   stumbled upon it for him… lol. So let me reword this….
   Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending some
   time to talk about this issue here on your web site.

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8. Lucy on March 27, 2017 at 10:11 am

   I think the list needs to be revised. If Jerry Brown’s current term is now added to what he served before, he is now up in the 14 yearlevel which would put him up in the top 10 longest serving governors.

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