8 of the most unconventional candidates to enter politics

During his two terms in the White House, President Reagan became one of the most important Republican presidents in modern times and served as an ideological beacon for conservatives across the country.

But decades before Reagan served as president from 1981 to 1989, his career was rooted in media and film. In the 1930s, he was a sports announcer for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa, where he called University of Iowa football games and Chicago Cubs baseball games.

Reagan then went to Hollywood, where he appeared in a series of films, including Westerns, from the late 1930s through the 1960s, and served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960.

In the 1960s, Reagan began to enter politics in earnest, delivering his famous “A Time to Choose” speech in support of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964. The speech brought him national fame and helped him win the 1966 California gubernatorial election, defeating then-Democratic Governor Pat Brown. Reagan was re-elected governor in 1970.

Reagan sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1976 but lost to then-President Gerald Ford, who in turn lost the general election to former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.

However, Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination four years later, ousting Carter from office.

Jesse “The Body” Ventura rose to fame as a wrestler with the World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment in the 1970s and 1980s.

He went on to star in several films, including the 1987 sci-fi film “Predator,” in which he co-starred with future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

However, he entered politics when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He served as mayor from 1991 to 1995.

In 1998, Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota, receiving 37% of the vote as the Reform Party candidate in a multi-candidate election against Democrat Hubert “Skip” Humphrey III and Republican Norm Coleman.

Ventura declined to run for re-election in 2002.

Franken rose to fame as a writer and performer on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in the 1980s and 1990s.

He later hosted the progressive-leaning “The Al Franken Show” on Air America Radio.

But Franken’s real political debut came in November 2008, when he faced off against then-Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota in one of the most competitive races in the country. Because of the close race and subsequent recounts and lawsuits, Franken wasn’t sworn in until July 2009.

Franken was easily re-elected to a second term in 2014. but Got off He was removed from his role in January 2018 after facing allegations of sexual misconduct.

After graduating from Wesleyan University, Hickenlooper began his career as a geologist and later co-founded the Wynkoop Brewing Company. In Denver.

Hickenlooper is Business Background He entered Democratic politics and served as Mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011 and Governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019.

Hickenlooper ran for president in 2019 and 2020 but was unsuccessful in primaries that included current President Joe Biden.

Hickenlooper quickly ran for Colorado’s 2020 Senate seat, ultimately defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner.

Schwarzenegger rose to world fame as a professional bodybuilder, winning the Mr. Universe title in 1967, at age 20.

He launched a highly lucrative acting career in the early 1980s, appearing in hits like The Terminator and Terminator 2, as well as well-known films like Predator, Total Recall, True Lies, Kindergarten Cop and Eraser.

From 1990 to 1993, Schwarzenegger served as chairman of the Presidential Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. During the George H.W. Bush administration.

Schwarzenegger, who was married at the time to Kennedy scion Maria Shriver, later ran in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. That year, California voters supported a recall that forced then-Democratic Governor Gray Davis out of office and installed Schwarzenegger, who was voters’ front-runner to replace Davis.

A member of the Republican Party’s moderate wing, Schwarzenegger led efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and held more liberal views on abortion rights than many in his party. He was re-elected in 2006 with the support of nearly all Republicans, about a quarter of Democrats and a majority of independents before leaving office in 2011.

Schwarzenegger has since criticized the California Republican Party, telling The New York Times last year that the state’s GOP “He did a terrible job” of representing the people.

Cynthia Nixon has been an actress since 1979, playing acclaimed roles in a number of television and film productions, as well as Tony Award-winning performances in Broadway productions of Rabbit Hole and The Little Foxes.

But it was her role as dim-witted lawyer Miranda Hobbes in the hit HBO series “Sex and the City,” which aired from 1998 to 2004, that made her one of the best-known actresses in entertainment. (Two SATC movies and the currently-running Max series “And Just Like That…” followed.)

Nixon has been active on education and women’s issues, and in 2018 she challenged then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary.

During the primary, she focused on income inequality and enacting single-payer health care in the state, but fell short to Cuomo, garnering 34% of the vote to the then-governor’s roughly 66%.

Mr. Shanahan, who will be independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election (also a member of the Kennedy family), is a newcomer to the national political scene.

Shanahan, a lawyer, founded the patent technology company ClearAccessIP and was previously married to billionaire Google co-founder Sergey Brin. (Shanahan and Brin divorced in 2023.)

In a March 2024 interview with Newsweek magazine, Kennedy Jr. emphasized his choice of Shanahan because he values ​​garnering support from a broad range of Americans, particularly younger voters.

“We want someone who cares about young people and doesn’t treat them like they’re invisible,” he told the paper. “She’s only 38, she comes from the tech industry and she understands social media.”

At this point, Trump’s background is almost universally known.

During the 1980s and 1990s, he transformed his New York City real estate empire into the kind of celebrity he had long sought.

Trump, obsessed with the court intrigue of Trump Tower and the Trump Organization, began hosting the NBC reality show “The Apprentice” in 2004. The show was an immediate success, and it and variations on it captured the public’s attention for more than a decade.

Trump kicked off his 2016 presidential campaign at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

After a highly tumultuous first term, Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden.

Biden and Trump are set to face off again in the 2024 presidential election.