He’s been a mayor, a senator, a governor, a Republican, an independent and a Democrat.
Now, Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island senator and governor, is expected to launch a long-shot campaign for the White House.
Chafee will announce his intentions about running for president as a Democrat Wednesday evening at the George Mason Center for Politics & Foreign Relations outside Washington D.C.
Chafee isn’t even registering in some polls: the latest CNN/Opinion Research national poll of Democratic primary votes shows Chafee with 0 percent of support, compared to 60 percent for Hillary Clinton.
Should he enter the race, Chafee will be the fourth Democrat to do so, following Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
Chafee in April announced the formation of an exploratory committee.
“Throughout my career,” he said at the time, “I exercised good judgment on a wide range of high-pressure decisions, decisions that require level-headedness and careful foresight. Often these decisions came in the face of political adversity.”
Chaffee was appointed to replace his father in the U.S. Senate in 1999, going on to be elected to the seat in 2000. A liberal Republican who voted against the war in the Iraq, Chafee was defeated for re-election in 2006 by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
In 2007, he left the Republican Party to become an Independent. After winning election as governor in 2010, Chafee became a Democrat in 2011. He did not seek re-election in 2014.
