Lincoln Chafee

Lincoln Chafee
Official Senate portrait
74th Governor of Rhode Island
In office January 4, 2011 – January 6, 2015
Lieutenant	Elizabeth Roberts
Preceded by	Don Carcieri
Succeeded by	Gina Raimondo
United States Senator from Rhode Island
In office November 2, 1999 – January 3, 2007
Preceded by	John Chafee
Succeeded by	Sheldon Whitehouse
Mayor of Warwick
In office January 1, 1993 – November 1, 1999
Preceded by	Charles Donovan
Succeeded by	Scott Avedisian
Personal details
Born	Lincoln Davenport Chafee (1953-03-26) March 26, 1953 (age 71) Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Political party	Libertarian (2019–present)
Other political affiliations	Republican (through mid-2007) Independent (2007–2013) Democratic (2013–2019)
Spouse	Stephanie Birney Danforth ​ ​ (m. 1990)​
Children	3, including Louisa
Residence(s)	Teton Village, Wyoming, U.S.
Education	Brown University (BA)
Website	Campaign website
Lincoln Chafee's voice Chafee, while a U.S. senator, speaks in support of a PAYGO-related amendment to the FY2006 budget resolution Recorded March 16, 2005

This article is part of a series about Lincoln Chafee
Political positions U.S. Senator from Rhode Island Senatorial career Elections 2000 2006 Governor of Rhode Island Gubernatorial career 2010 election Presidential campaigns 2016 primaries 2020 primaries Chafee Leadership Forum
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Lincoln Davenport Chafee (/ˈtʃeɪfiː/ CHAY-fee; born March 26, 1953) is an American politician. He was mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island, from 1993 to 1999, a United States Senator from 1999 to 2007, and the 74th Governor of Rhode Island from 2011 to 2015. He was a Democrat from 2013 to 2019; in June 2019, The Boston Globe reported that he became a Libertarian,^[1][2] having previously been a Republican until September 2007 and an independent and then a Democrat in the interim. He is the last non-Democrat to hold statewide and/or Congressional office in Rhode Island.

The son of Republican politician John Chafee, who was the 66th Governor of Rhode Island, the United States Secretary of the Navy, and a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee's first elected office was as a member of the Warwick City Council in 1985. After John Chafee died in 1999, Lincoln Chafee was appointed to fill his father's seat in the U.S. Senate to which he won a full term in 2000.

Chafee was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against authorization of the use of force in Iraq in the lead-up to the Iraq War. He was defeated in his 2006 reelection bid by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. Chafee subsequently shifted his affiliation towards the Democratic Party by first endorsing Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, running as an independent for Governor of Rhode Island in 2010, serving as the co-chair of Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, and then finally officially switching his registration to the Democratic Party in May 2013. In March 2019, he switched his political affiliation again to the Libertarian Party.

In 2015, he sought nomination to become the Democratic Party candidate in the 2016 presidential election, but withdrew prior to the primaries. In January 2020, Chafee filed to run again for president, this time seeking the Libertarian nomination. Chafee withdrew his candidacy on April 5, 2020, and announced he would instead focus on helping "other Libertarians seeking office."