2020 Presidential Trivia

While there's still a long time before the actual voting begins in the presidential primary, it's pretty clear that we're down to only six plausible people who will be elected president next year.  Of course there's Donald Trump, who is certain to the Republican nominee next year unless something seismic were to happen, and for the Democrats we're seeing (probably in descending order of likelihood) Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg take almost every major polling lead.  As a result, I wanted to dive into some trivia about these six were they to be the nominee or to win the Oval Office next November.  Below you'll find thirty nuggets you can trot out the next time these people are brought up at your dinner table or elevator ride:

1. Were he to be nominated, Pete Buttigieg would become the first openly-gay presidential candidate for a major party, and would become the first openly-gay president.
2. Kamala Harris would be the first person of Asian descent to ever be nominated for president for a major party.
3. Bernie Sanders would be the first Jewish person to be nominated for president by a major party.
4. Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders would be the oldest person ever to take the Oath of Office for the first time, both being in their 70's.
5. Were they elected, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden would be the first (and surely the only) member of the Silent Generation to be elected to the White House.  Pete Buttigieg would be the first Millennial to be elected to the White House.
6. Pete Buttigieg would be the first president since George HW Bush to have served on active combat duty.
7. If Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders are the nominees against Donald Trump, it would be the first time in American history that both of the major party candidates have been divorced.
8. At 37, Pete Buttigieg would become the youngest person to serve as president, being 1416 days younger than Theodore Roosevelt when he became president.
9. Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren would become the first woman to ever serve as President of the United States.
10. Trump would be the first incumbent since George HW Bush to lose reelection, and only the fifth president in the last century to lose reelection (Hoover, Ford, Carter, and Bush are the other four).
11. Bernie Sanders would become the first president since George HW Bush to have also served in the US House.
12. If Donald Trump wins reelection, it will be the first time in American history that four consecutive presidents have won reelection.  Currently two sets of three presidents (Jefferson/Madison/Monroe and Clinton/Bush/Obama) have won two terms, but never four consecutively.
13. Pete Buttigieg would be the first president since George HW Bush to have two middle names (Paul and Montgomery).  Bernie Sanders would be the first president since Harry Truman not to have a middle name; if you count "S" (Truman's middle initial) as a middle name, the last president without a middle name was Teddy Roosevelt.
14. Elizabeth Warren would be the first president born in Oklahoma and Pete Buttigieg would be the first president born in Indiana.
15. Unless Joe Biden or Mike Pence becomes president at some point, this will be the first time since 1833 that five consecutive vice presidents have not become president.
16. Elizabeth Warren would be the third president to have a different last name when sworn in than at birth, as she was born Elizabeth Herring.  The first two were Gerald Ford, born Leslie Lynch King but was renamed after his mother remarried and the second was Bill Clinton, who was born William Jefferson Blythe, Jr.
17. Provided the Democratic nominee is Sanders/Warren/Harris and none of them resign between now and the election, Trump would be the first ever sitting president to be defeated by an incumbent member of Congress.  Grover Cleveland, Martin van Buren, and John Quincy Adams all lost to members of Congress, but none of them were incumbents during the election (similar to if Trump lost to Biden).
18. Elizabeth Warren would be the fourth president whose middle name starts with a vowel (her middle name is Ann).  The others are Jimmy Carter (Earl), Chester Arthur (Alan), and James Garfield (Abram).
19. Chasten Buttigieg would be the first First Spouse born in Michigan.  All other potential First Spouses wouldn't be the first person to hold that office from their state.
20. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, or Pete Buttigieg would be the first president since Dwight Eisenhower not to have a biological daughter.
21. Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg would be the first presidents without biological children since James Buchanan.
22. Several schools would boast their first presidential graduates depending on November's victor.  They include Howard University (Harris), University of California (Harris), University of Houston (Warren), Rutgers (Warren), Brooklyn College (Sanders), University of Chicago (Sanders), University of Delaware (Biden), and Syracuse (Biden).
23. Joe Biden would become the first vice president to become president since George HW Bush.  He'd become only the second non-sitting vice president to assume the presidency, the other being Richard Nixon (who served as Vice President from 1953-61, and then as POTUS from 1969-74).
24. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump are currently undefeated in their electoral history.  Biden technically ran for president in 1988 & 2008, and lost both primaries.  Pete Buttigieg lost a campaign for State Treasurer in 2010, and Bernie Sanders lost bids for Congress in 1972, 1974, & 1988, as well as bids for governor in 1972, 1976, & 1986 (along with the 2016 presidential primaries).  It's worth noting that the last president to end their career undefeated was John F. Kennedy.
25. Jane Sanders or Jill Biden would both become the oldest person to become First Lady.  Both are several years older than current oldest title-holder Anna Symmes Harrison (who was 65).
26. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris would become the fourth sitting US Senator to be elected to the presidency after Warren G. Harding, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama.
27. Joe Biden would be the first Scorpio (in the Zodiac) to be elected president since Warren G. Harding 100 years ago.  All other presidential signs are more recent.
28. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden all have defeated an incumbent to win elected office.  Sanders did it twice, first against Gordon Paquette (for mayor of Burlington, Vermont) and then against Rep. Peter Smith to win a seat in the US House.  Biden & Warren did it once, Biden in 1972 in his campaign against Sen. Caleb Boggs, and Warren in 2012 against Sen. Scott Brown.  Obviously, in order for them to become president all Democratic candidates would need to defeat an incumbent (Trump).
29. Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg would be the first mayor elected to the presidency since Calvin Coolidge, who briefly served as mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts.
30. Biden would be the first president to have held county-level office (he served on the New Castle County Council from 1970-72) since Harry Truman (who was Jackson County Judge from 1923-35).