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Two former presidents of the United States--John Quincy Adams and Andrew Johnson--were elected to the US Congress after their tenure as president. (And then there was John Tyler, who served in the *Confederate* Congress.) However, AFAIK none has run for governor of any state. The one who came closest was Theodore Roosevelt, whom some Progressives wanted to run for Governor of New York in 1914:

"Many New York Progressives urged Roosevelt to run himself, believing that only he could head off [impeached former governor] Sulzer in the primaries and go on to win in November. ". . .I have at present not the slightest doubt of your election, though I would hardly expect any other man on the ticket . . . to win," the former state chairman William H. Hotchkiss wrote Roosevelt in July. Beveridge also thought T.R. should run, and lectured the Colonel at Sagamore Hill that it was his duty to the party. But most Progressives outside New York thought Roosevelt should not be a candidate. Leaders from all over the country wrote urging him not to run. Poindexter of Washington, Johnson of California, Congressman Hinebaugh of Illinois, chairman of the Progressive congressional campaign committee, Garfield of Ohio, and others declared that Roosevelt owed it as his duty to campaign for Progressive candidates throughout the nation, and pointed out that a defeat in New York in 1914 could destroy his chances for the Presidency in 1916."...I do not think, "National Committeeman Pearl Wight of Louisiana said, "that the Progressives of New York, can afford, for the sake of making a showing, to endanger the chances of the Colonel for President in the next election." Roosevelt for that matter did not want to run for governor. He had been governor as a young man; now he was primarily interested in national affairs. Moreover, he felt that his duty lay with the party nationally, and if he were a candidate he could not answer the calls of Progressives in other states for campaign appearances..."

John Allen Gable, *The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party,* p. 193.

Can anyone think of any other possibilities? (They can be either pre-or post-1900; I put it in the post-1900 section because the case it came closest to happening was TR in 1914.)
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