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Which states elect presidents?
The geography of who lands in the White House
There are forty-four presidents. Thirty-nine were elected (five accidentally became president). Of the thirty nine people elected president, twenty-eight have lived in either New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, or Ohio for at least part of their life. Twenty-one were born in one of those four states.
There’s one uncertainty about how many presidents were born in each state: Andrew Jackson was born near the border of South Carolina and North Carolina. It’s not known which state he was actually born in. Jackson was a man of many states; he served as military governor of Florida and later as one of Tennessee’s senators.
Virginia is the birthplace of more presidents than any other state. New York and Massachusetts are linked to larger numbers of presidents (fourteen and thirteen, respectively); it has always been common for ambitious young people to move to Boston or New York City to try to make something of themselves. Many future presidents have been educated in the Acela corridor.
Out of the thirty-nine men who were elected president, thirty-four served in a political office…