Why aren't representatives typically seen as presidential material?

[President Johnson]

With all this focus on Beto and some guys both in the media and the Forum, why aren't House members typically seen as "qualified enough" to be president? That's not the case with senators, even though I know only the senate approves presidential nominations. But putting thumbs up or down for some cabinet secretary or judges can hardly be seen as much presidential training. Of course, a senator's vote has more individual impact and he usually represents more people, but representatives usually won more elections since the have to run every two years; sometimes in swing districts versus safe states for some senators. (By the way: The mayor of New York or Los Angeles also represents more people than the governor of Delaware or Montana).

I personally do believe that governors are, at least on paper, best qualified for the job, especially if the have some legislative experience in congress or at the state level before, and maybe a private sector career. But wouldn't say a congressman is much less qualified than a senator, especially when he or she served for a couple of terms. Beto for example would have been in congress for a longer time than Obama when was elected president.

[pops]

Because they only represent a small segment of voters and usually don't have to pay attention to anything but hot button issues and local issues, whereas people who are elected statewide have to win over competing demographics and apply to a broader range of issues.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Bring back James Garfield!

[MarkD]

Because they only represent a small segment of voters and usually don't have to pay attention to anything but hot button issues and local issues, whereas people who are elected statewide have to win over competing demographics and apply to a broader range of issues.

In other words, they're just little pipsqueaks.

[jimrtex]

Bring back James Garfield!

Garfield was a senator-elect and had been a general. He was also on the commission to determine who was elected President in 1876 (he is similar to McGovern and Carter in that they had been involved in setting the rules for nominating the Democratic candidate).

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

They only represent a small percentage of Americans (between 550 and 950 thousand), and an even smaller number of those vote (between 125 and 400 thousand) in elections, meaning their issue bases are more localized, less polarizing, and many Representatives are in safe seats, eliminating a real need to campaign heavily outside of primaries anyways.

There's 435 Representatives, and maybe 20% of them will serve in any higher office such as Governor, Senator, Cabinet, etc.

TL;DR: Too many Representatives, too little exposure.

[brucejoel99]

Yeah, as my fellow respondents have observed, the demographic support for congressmen is substantially smaller than that of a senator or governor, & while some congressmen do run for president, the only ones who actually became president are b/c of their other roles (e.g. Jerry Ford as VP following Agnew's resignation; Senator-elect + General James Garfield; etc.).

What I'd like to add is that politics is, in some ways, a profession like any other, w/ a career hierarchy & a ladder to success. Unless you're born into a political dynasty like the Kennedy or Bush families, or have wealth, like Trump, the main way to achieve success in politics is to move up through the ranks, starting at the state legislatures, moving up to Congress, & then from there to the Senate or as a governor. There are other pathways, such as moving from being a mayor to being a governor, or from holding a state office like attorney general & then becoming governor. But all of the pathways tend to require a certain amount of dues paying, perhaps even starting at the local level (e.g. school board, city commission, etc.). In the hierarchy of things, to try to go from being a member of the House to being a presidential candidate is essentially to skip a step. In recent history, apart from Dick Gephardt having carved out a real power base over a long time of service in the House or Beto's charismatic Senate candidacy capturing the party's imagination, all of the congressmen who ran for president (Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Dennis Kucinich, 2000's John Kasich) were dark horse candidates w/ only the thinnest chance of getting their party's nomination. There's a reason it's called "the lower house."

[DINGO Joe]

Of course, if you're a Senator of a small state you're probably not appealing to a diverse population either.