office seeker

noun

1. a person who seeks appointment or election to some government position.

Word History and Origins

Origin of office seeker¹

An Americanism dating back to 1805–15

Example Sentences

The Constitution is not partisan, and in 1883, after a mentally ill disappointed office seeker assassinated President James A. Garfield, Congress passed a law requiring that the people who staff government offices be hired on the basis of their skills, not their partisanship.

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From the start of the election interference case, federal prosecutors — led by the special counsel Jack Smith — have argued that Trump was acting not in his public role as an officeholder, but rather in his private role as an office seeker, when he undertook an array of schemes to illegally stay in power.

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Once someone establishes a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the office seeker to prove otherwise.

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Mr. Trump’s favored candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is a first-time office seeker who has threatened to jail the state’s top elections official.

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As the New York Times reported, "Mr. Trump's favored candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is a first-time office seeker who has threatened to jail the state's top elections official. His chosen candidate to replace that elections official, a Democrat, is a state legislator named Mark Finchem, who was with a group of demonstrators outside the Capitol on January 6 as rioters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election."

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Related Words

• congressperson 
• lawmaker 
• leader 
• legislator 
• member of Congress 
• officeholder 
• president 
• representative 
• senator