Polk left Congress to run for governor of Tennessee; he won in 1839, but lost in 1841 and 1843. He was a dark horse candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1844; he entered his party's convention as a potential nominee for vice president, but emerged as a compromise to head the ticket when no presidential candidate could secure the necessary two-thirds majority. In the general election, Polk defeated Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party. Historian Thomas A. Bailey says that during the Mexican war, 'Polk was an energetic and indefatigable war leader, and he emerged, partly through rare good luck, with uninterrupted success. He kept the sole direction of the war in his own hands, from grand strategy to the procurement of mules.' True to his campaign pledge to serve only one term, Polk left office in 1849 and returned to Tennessee where he died three months after leaving the White House.
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