Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee announces he is entering the presidential race, becoming the third Democratic challenger to Hillary Clinton.
Chafee, a former Republican and former senator, has been differentiating himself from fellow Democratic contenders by taking jabs at Clinton over her vote in Congress to authorize the war in Iraq.
Born in Providence, Chafee is the son of Republican politician John Chafee, who served as the 66th Governor of Rhode Island (1963–1969), the United States Secretary of the Navy (1969–1972) and a U.S. Senator (1976–1999). Lincoln Chafee was educated at Providence Country Day School and Phillips Academy, before graduating with a degree in Classics from Brown University. He then moved to Bozeman, Montana, studying to become a farrier at Montana State University, then working at harness racetracks in the United States and Canada.
Chafee returned to Rhode Island and entered politics as a Republican in 1985 as a delegate to the Rhode Island Constitutional Convention. A year later, he was elected to the Warwick City Council, where he served until his election as Warwick’s mayor in 1992. When his father died in 1999, Governor Lincoln Almond appointed the younger Chafee to his father’s seat in the U.S. Senate. He won the 2000 election to a full term, defeating Democrat Robert Weygand by 57% to 41%.
