10 Musicians Who Later Became Politicians

A co-founder of the jam band Phish (named after him, as the story usually goes), drummer Jon Fishman enjoyed a brief stint in local politics. Between endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries and performing at his campaign events, he advocated — along with Nirvana’s Novoselic — for ranked-choice voting in statewide elections in Maine, which became the first state in the nation to adopt the system in 2018. In 2017, he won a seat on the select board of Lincolnville, Maine, the tiny coastal town that had been his home for a decade. “Bernie was saying, ‘Look at all of you people who got on the Sanders campaign and cared about these issues, you should run for your local offices,’” Fishman said at the time. “I could sit on my butt somewhere and not be engaged, but we do have a personal stake in the well-being of the town.” He didn’t run for reelection in 2020, but, in fairness, it was probably hard to balance continued Phish tours with regular administrative meetings.

The musician-turned-politician who likely comes to mind first for millions of Americans is, of course, Sonny Bono, half of the married-for-a-decade duo Sonny & Cher. With hit songs of the Sixties like “I Got You Babe” and a couple of Seventies variety shows, the couple were pop culture royalty. While Cher was the more celebrated singer, Bono turned out to be a mainstay of television as both host and a guest star across many series. Fed up with what he saw as regulatory red tape preventing him from opening a restaurant in Palm Springs, California, he ran for mayor of the desert city and served from 1988 until 1992, when he made an unsuccessful bid to secure the Republican nomination for one of California’s Senate seats. In 1994, he won a race to replace a retiring incumbent representing California’s 44th District, covering part of southern Los Angeles, and held that office until his death in a skiing accident four years later. While in Congress, Bono criticized GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich for his approach to media appearances and advocated for environmental restoration projects in California. A law extending copyright terms, passed after he died, was named in his honor, given his sponsorship of an earlier version of the bill. Among all who have ever served in U.S. Congress, Bono is the only person with a number one pop single to his name.

The frontman and founding member of soft rock band Orleans, John Hall was also a session musician and songwriter for the likes of Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Browne. He co-wrote his band’s biggest Seventies hits, “Dance with Me” and “Still the One” — the latter used without permission by the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain in the 2000s, much to Hall’s disapproval. From the late Seventies on, he took an active role in upstate New York politics, organizing for anti-nuclear power and environmentally progressive policies. He joined the legislature of Ulster County in 1989 and the Board of Education of Saugerties, New York, in 1991, later serving two terms in Congress as a Democrat representing the state’s 19th District, from 2007 to 2011. While in Washington, he continued to advocate for environmental causes and served on a subcommittee on energy independence and climate change. Hall had put music on hold while he held office, but in 2021 released a solo album called Reclaiming My Time — a nod to procedural language used in the Capitol.

A Motown icon who fronted Martha & the Vandellas, the girl group that gave us immortal hits including “Nowhere to Run” and “Dancing in the Streets,” Martha Reeves more than earned her spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 greatest singers of all time. She has the additional distinction of being elected to the city council of her hometown of Detroit, holding that position from 2005 to 2009. Her term was not without its travails, and her failed reelection bid included an embarrassing gaffe in which an error-filled campaign flier identified her as a member of the NFL team the Detroit Lions. But Reeves was sanguine about her time in government. “It was an education that I didn’t think I would get anywhere else,” she said as she left office, commemorating her departure by singing a set for friends and family. “I’m glad it’s over, but I don’t regret it at all.”   

Few biographies could be more American than that of Jimmie Davis. Born at the turn of the 20th century to poor Louisiana sharecroppers who could not remember his exact birthday, he embarked on a country music career in the 1920s, eventually helping to popularize the genre far beyond its rural origins. He was also renowned for his gospel singing. Davis’ 1940 landmark recording of “You Are My Sunshine,” whose original authorship is disputed, turned into a national phenomenon and spawned hundreds of covers; decades later, it was named Louisiana’s official state song. Davis began climbing the political ladder in the late Thirties, first with a job as a safety commissioner in Shreveport, then working for a state utilities regulator. He ran for governor as a Democrat in 1944, performing at campaign rallies, and was known as “the singing governor” after taking his office, which he was known to ignore in favor of opportunities in entertainment, like the chance to play himself in a 1947 Hollywood biopic called Louisiana. This period is nonetheless remembered for a number of progressive achievements in social welfare, education, and public health, and Davis obtained the first driver’s license in the state after signing the law that created the licensing system. He served a second term as governor from 1960-1964, having won reelection after a long absence from office by pledging to uphold segregation policies. Once back in government, he took measures to quash civil rights activism.

Like Mamdani, Beto O’Rourke made it to the national political stage and soon found his opponents trying to attack him over his musical past. The former El Paso City city council member and three-term representative for Texas’ 16th District gave up his U.S. House seat to mount a formidable 2018 challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz. That summer, the Texas GOP tweeted out the cover of The El Paso Pussycats, a 1993 EP that O’Rourke had recorded with his old post-harcore band Foss, playing bass (he was wearing his then-girlfriend’s floral dress in the photo). Intended as a jab about the candidate ducking debates with Cruz to play a gig instead, the post was widely mocked and presumably did little to help Cruz claim a narrow victory in November (the rivals ultimately had two debates, with Cruz skipping a third, town-hall style event). Meanwhile, O’Rourke was credited with helping down-ballot allies win, and he set a record for most votes cast for a Democrat in Texas history. Most commentators felt, in fact, that his punk days were a credibility boost for O’Rourke, who frequently talked about the DIY scene of El Paso in the early Nineties, where he met Foss drummer and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, later famous as the frontman of At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta. On the campaign trail in 2017, he told Rolling Stone that he had been into groups including the Clash, Minor Threat, and Rites of Spring, and admired the self-made D.C. label Dischord Records.            

Antonio Delgado represented New York’s 19th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, leaving in the middle of his second term to become the state’s lieutenant governor, the position he currently holds. Before entering politics, Delgado was a rapper, spitting socially conscious verses about racial justice, the war in Iraq, the need for universal health care, and more under the moniker AD the Voice. Republicans tried to use Delgado’s rap career against him when he was running to unseat incumbent Rep. John Faso in Congress, calling him a “big city rapper” in one attack ad. It didn’t work. Delgado ousted Faso, won a second term two years later, and is now serving New York in Albany.

Bruce Franks Jr. came to prominence as a leader and mediator in St. Louis-area protests that erupted in the months following the fatal shooting of Black 18-year-old Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. A impassioned battle rapper under the name Ooops — his most memorable matchup was a 2015 showdown against the California rapper Daylyt — he called for criminal justice reform and police accountability as part of the ascendant Black Lives Matter movement, and was arrested at multiple rallies over the deaths of people of color at the hands of law enforcement. Franks secured a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives in 2016 after successfully suing to overturn the results of a Democratic primary in which he had lost to the incumbent, arguing that absentee ballots had been miscounted, and then winning the court-ordered do-over primary. Though his activism inspired many others, as well as an Oscar-nominated short documentary, St. Louis Superman, he resigned from office in 2019, citing mental health issues. That same year, the Missouri Ethics Commission fined him more than $14,000 for a variety of campaign finance violations. Last year, Franks was charged with theft and forgery in Arizona for allegedly falsifying documents about his printing company sending out 2022 election campaign flyers that were never actually mailed. He entered a plea deal, pleading guilty to one charge of theft, and was placed on supervised probation, with nine other charges dismissed.     

A hardcore punk guitarist throughout the Nineties and 2000s, Justin Brannan often fused politics and music with his collaborators in the bands Indecision and Most Precious Blood. The latter, like Brannan, explicitly espoused ideals of animal welfare, environmentalism, and social justice, appealing to the straight-edge set. Brannan worked a couple of jobs in finance — he was a wealth management clerk at the ill-fated Bear Stearns when it went under during the 2008 financial crisis — before landing a communications role under a New York City council member representing the 47th District, which encompasses neighborhoods including Bay Ridge, where he grew up and eventually founded a Democratic political club. He took over that council seat in 2017, was reelected in 2021, and managed to keep it after the district was redrawn for a 2024 election. His 2025 bid to become New York City comptroller was unsuccessful, however. Despite his rise in municipal government, Brannan is still happy to reminisce about his touring days, which made for lots of gritty, wild stories. “We would specifically ask the booking agents to send us where other bands didn’t wanna go,” he said of Most Precious Blood in an interview with the hardcore site No Echo in 2024. “Sometimes it was awesome. Sometimes we got strip-searched.” 

Jerry Butler, who died at age 85 in February, got his start as the lead vocalist for the R&B group the Impressions, joining the vocal ensemble in the late Fifties along with Curtis Mayfield after the two met singing in a Chicago church choir. He soon went solo, however, with a string of memorable soul singles including “Only the Strong Survive” and “Let It Be Me.” A cool and composed stage presence nicknamed The Iceman, Butler would go on to be a commissioner for Cook County, Illinois, from 1986 until his retirement 2018, earning a master’s degree in public administration in 1993. Butler was passionate about expanding public access to healthcare and instrumental in the opening of the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County in 2002. After his death, colleagues memorialized him as someone who worked hard to improve community resources and infrastructure. Throughout his more than 30 years as a county commissioner, he continued to sing as Jerry “Iceman” Butler on the weekends.