The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people
#32751
Louise Natrajan
#32763
Overall Influence
Louise Sarah Natrajan is a British chemist and a reader in the Department of Chemistry at The University of Manchester. Her research typically is based on actinide chemistry and luminescence spectroscopy, though some of her published research has extended to lanthanide chemistry, transition metal complexes and organic chemistry.
Go to Profile#32752
Biz Markie
#32764
Overall Influence
1964 - 2021 (57 years)
Marcel Theo Hall , known professionally as Biz Markie, was an American rapper and singer. Markie's 1989 single "Just a Friend", became a Top 40 hit in several countries and was named No. 100 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest hip-hop songs of all time in 2008. Markie was sometimes referred to as the "Clown Prince of Hip Hop".
Go to Profile#32753
Rosanne Cash
#32765
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Rosanne Cash is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife. Although she is often classified as a country artist, her music draws on many genres, including folk, pop, rock, blues, and most notably Americana. In the 1980s, she had a string of genre-crossing singles that entered both the country and pop charts, the most commercially successful being her 1981 breakthrough hit "Seven Year Ache", which topped the U.S. country singles chart and reached the Top 30 on the U.S. pop chart.
Go to Profile#32754
Brett Lee
#32766
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Brett Lee is an Australian former international cricketer, who played all three formats of the game. During his international career, Lee was recognised as one of the fastest bowlers in the world. With his time representing Australia, Lee won multiple ICC titles with the team: the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the 2007 Cricket World Cup, the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, and the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy. Lee was the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the T20 format of the game which he did in 2007 ICC World Twenty20 in the inaugural tournament against Bangladesh, subsequently being the first bowler to do so at an ICC Men's T20 World Cup.
Go to Profile#32755
Pascal Lee
#32767
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Pascal Lee is co-founder and chairman of the Mars Institute, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, and the Principal Investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He holds an ME in geology and geophysics from the University of Paris, and a PhD in astronomy and space sciences from Cornell University.
Go to Profile#32756
David C. Mowery
#32768
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
David C. Mowery is the William A. & Betty H. Hasler Professor of New Enterprise Development at the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. He earned a BA, an MA, and a Ph.D. in economics, each from Stanford University. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor in the Social and Decision Sciences Department, Carnegie-Mellon University in 1982, being promoted to associate professor prior to moving to UC Berkeley in 1988. He has also served as Assistant to the Counselor, Office of the United States Trade Representative and a Fellow at the Council on For...
Go to Profile#32757
Wolfgang Tschacher
#32769
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Wolfgang Tschacher is a Swiss psychologist and university lecturer. He is professor at the University of Bern.., Switzerland. He has conducted theoretical and empirical research in the fields of psychotherapy and psychopathology, especially from a systems-theoretical perspective that includes self-organization and complexity theory. He is active in the development of time series methods for the modeling of psychotherapeutic processes and generally social systems.
Go to Profile#32758
Olav Fykse Tveit
#32770
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Olav Fykse Tveit is a Norwegian Lutheran theologian and bishop, and the current Preses of the Bishops' Conference of the Church of Norway. He was elected to the post of general secretary of the World Council of Churches on 27 August 2009. He entered office on 1 January 2010, for a proposed term of five years, and was re-elected to a second term in July 2014. He resigned from the post in March 2020, having been elected Preses of the Bishops' Conference of the Church of Norway.
Go to Profile#32759
Colin Greenwood
#32771
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Colin Charles Greenwood is an English musician and the bassist for the rock band Radiohead. Along with bass guitar, Greenwood plays upright bass and electronic instruments. With his younger brother, Jonny, Greenwood attended Abingdon School in Abingdon, England, where he met the other band members. Radiohead have achieved critical acclaim and have sold more than 30 million albums. Greenwood was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in 2019.
Go to Profile#32760
Tim Wakefield
#32772
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Timothy Stephen Wakefield was an American professional baseball knuckleball pitcher. Wakefield began his Major League Baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but is most remembered for his 17-year tenure with the Boston Red Sox, from 1995 until his retirement in 2012 as the longest-serving player on the team, earning a total of $55 million. When he retired at age 45 after 19 seasons in MLB, Wakefield was the oldest active player in the major leagues.
Go to Profile#32761
Suzan Shown Harjo
#32773
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Suzan Shown Harjo is an advocate for Native American rights. She is a poet, writer, lecturer, curator, and policy advocate who has helped Native peoples recover more than one million acres of tribal lands. After co-producing the first American Indian news show in the nation for WBAI radio while living in New York City, and producing other shows and theater, in 1974 she moved to Washington, D.C., to work on national policy issues. She served as Congressional liaison for Indian affairs in the President Jimmy Carter administration and later as president of the National Council of American Indi...
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Joseph Smagorinsky
#32774
Overall Influence
1924 - 2005 (81 years)
Joseph Smagorinsky was an American meteorologist and the first director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory . Early life Joseph Smagorinsky was born to Nathan Smagorinsky and Dina Azaroff. His parents were from Gomel, Belarus, which they fled during the life-threatening pogroms of the early 20th century. Nathan and Dina bore three sons in Gomel: Jacob , Samuel , and David . In 1913, Nathan emigrated from the coast of Finland, passing through Ellis Island and settling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nathan at first was a house painter.
Go to Profile#32763
Trevanian
#32775
Overall Influence
1931 - 2005 (74 years)
Rodney William Whitaker was an American film scholar and writer who wrote several novels under the pen name Trevanian. Whitaker wrote in a wide variety of genres, achieved bestseller status, and published under several other names, as well, including Nicholas Seare, Beñat Le Cagot, and Edoard Moran. He published the nonfiction book The Language of Film under his own name.
Go to Profile#32764
Meg Wolitzer
#32776
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Meg Wolitzer is an American novelist, known for The Wife, The Ten-Year Nap, The Uncoupling, The Interestings, and The Female Persuasion. She works as an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
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John Weinman
#32777
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Alfred Weinman is a British psychologist who has been prominent in the development of the field of health psychology. Career In 1974, Weinman was appointed as a lecturer in psychology at Guy's Hospital Medical School, London and was subsequently promoted to Professor of Psychology as Applied to Medicine. His unit was integrated into the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience of King's College London with which the medical school merged. He retired in 2015 and was granted the title of emeritus professor. He also held a position in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Scienc...
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Michael Bishop
#32778
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Michael Lawson Bishop was an American author. Over five decades and in more than thirty books, he created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature."
Go to Profile#32767
Suh Hoon
#32779
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Suh Hoon is a South Korean government official who served as the Director of National Security Office from 2020 to 2022 and previously as the director of the National Intelligence Service from 2017 to 2020.
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Lawrence W. Jones
#32780
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
Lawrence William Jones was an American academic and professor emeritus in the physics department at the University of Michigan. His field of interest was high energy particle physics. Early life and education Lawrence W. Jones was born in Evanston, Illinois, on November 16, 1925.
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Yuh Nung Jan
#32781
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Yuh Nung Jan is a Taiwanese-American neuroscientist. He is the Jack and DeLoris Lange Professor of Molecular Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he works together with his wife Lily Jan as co-PIs of the Jan Lab.
Go to Profile#32770
Brian Blessed
#32782
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Brian Blessed is an English actor known for his trademark bushy beard and his loud, booming voice. He portrayed PC "Fancy" Smith in Z-Cars, Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of I, Claudius, King Richard IV in the first series of Blackadder, Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon, Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in the 1981 original London production of Cats at the New London Theatre, Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter in Henry V, Boss Nass in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and the voice of Clayton in Disney's Tarzan.
Go to Profile#32771
Jean Bollack
#32783
Overall Influence
1923 - 2012 (89 years)
Jean Bollack was a French philosopher, philologist and literary critic. Biography He first studied classical philology at the University of Basel, among others with and Albert Béguin, and from 1945 at the University of Paris where he began working under the direction of Hellenist Pierre Chantraine.
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Eddie Albert
#32784
Overall Influence
1906 - 2005 (99 years)
Edward Albert Heimberger was an American actor and humanitarian. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; the first nomination came in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and the second in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma!, and the sadistic prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. He starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He also ha...
Go to Profile#32773
J. David Sapir
#32785
Overall Influence
J. David Sapir, son of Edward Sapir, is a linguist, anthropologist and photographer. He is Emeritus professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. He is known for his research on Jola languages. He has been editor of the journal Visual Anthropology Review
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Jurek Becker
#32786
Overall Influence
1937 - 1997 (60 years)
Jurek Becker was a Polish-born German writer, screenwriter and East German dissident. His most famous novel is Jacob the Liar, which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during World War II for about two years and survived the Holocaust.
Go to Profile#32775
Mariam Al Maadeed
#32787
Overall Influence
Mariam Al Maadeed is a Qatari national and a Professor in Physics and Materials Science at Qatar University. Biography Mariam Al Maadeed is the current Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at Qatar University. Al Maadeed was the Director of the Center for Advanced Materials , and founder of the Masters program of Materials Science and Technology, both at Qatar University. Al Madeed's research is in the field of polymer characterization and structure, nanocomposites and nanotechnology techniques.
Go to Profile#32776
David Broomhead
#32788
Overall Influence
1950 - 2014 (64 years)
David S. Broomhead was a British mathematician specialising in dynamical systems and was professor of applied mathematics at the School of Mathematics, University of Manchester. Education Broomhead was born on 13 November 1950 in Leeds. He attended Aireborough Grammar School and, after spending a year teaching in Uganda, Broomhead moved to Merton College, Oxford, where he read chemistry for his first degree. He remained in Oxford for his D.Phil., researching quantum mechanics under the supervision of Peter Atkins. He completed his thesis Molecules in Electromagnetic Fields in 1976.
Go to Profile#32777
Eduardo A. Roca
#32789
Overall Influence
1921 - 2019 (98 years)
Eduardo Alejandro Roca was an Argentine lawyer, academic, and diplomat. He was Ambassador of Argentina to the United States and was appointed as a permanent representative to the United Nations during the 1982 Falklands War.
Go to Profile#32778
Peter Roach
#32790
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Peter John Roach is a British retired phonetician. He taught at the Universities of Leeds and Reading, and is best known for his work on the pronunciation of British English. Education Peter Roach studied Classics at the Priory Grammar School for Boys, Shrewsbury. At Oxford University he took Classical Honour Moderations before graduating in psychology and philosophy . He studied teaching English overseas at Manchester University then went on to University College London to take a postgraduate course in phonetics. Later, while a lecturer at the University of Reading, he completed a PhD whic...
Go to Profile#32779
Ivan Capelli
#32791
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ivan Franco Capelli is an Italian former Formula One driver. He participated in 98 Grands Prix, debuting on 6 October 1985. He achieved three podiums, and scored a total of 31 championship points. From 1998 until 2017, he was a Formula One commentator on the Italian TV station Rai 1.
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Gerald Moore
#32792
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (102 years)
Gerald Moore was an English independent scholar. Biography Moore was born in Chiswick, London, to Rex Moore, an exhibitions officer, and his wife, Norah , an actor, on 22 August 1924. He went to Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire, and when he was 17 years old joined the Royal Navy, serving in the Atlantic and Arctic convoys during World War 2. He later studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he earned a first-class degree in English.
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Chuan He
#32793
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Chuan He is a Chinese-American chemical biologist. He currently serves as the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is best known for his work in discovering and deciphering reversible RNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation. He was awarded the 2023 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for his work in discovering and deciphering reversible RNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation in addition to his contributions to the invention of TAB-seq, a biochemica...
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Frans Van Coetsem
#32794
Overall Influence
1919 - 2002 (83 years)
Frans Van Coetsem was a Belgian linguist. After an academic career in Flanders and the Netherlands he was appointed professor at Cornell University in 1968, and consequently he emigrated to the US, where, after a few years, he chose to become a naturalized American citizen.
Go to Profile#32783
Alison Adam
#32795
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Alison Adam is a British researcher in the field of Science and Technology Studies and is known for her work on gender in information systems and the history of forensic science. She is Professor Emerita of science, technology and society at Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK.
Go to Profile#32784
Andie MacDowell
#32796
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Rosalie Anderson MacDowell is an American actress and former fashion model. MacDowell is known for her starring film roles in romantic comedies and dramas. She has modeled for Calvin Klein and has been a spokeswoman for L'Oréal since 1986.
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Tom Ginsburg
#32797
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is primarily known as a scholar of international and comparative law, with a focus on constitutions and a regional specialty of East Asia.
Go to Profile#32786
Chris Baker
#32798
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Christopher John Baker is a Thailand-based British writer who has made his home in Bangkok for more than 30 years. He is the co-author of A History of Thailand, Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand, Thailand's Boom and Bust, and Thailand's Crisis, all written with his wife, Dr. Pasuk Phongpaichit. He was the principal writer of the United Nations Development Programme's Thailand Human Development Report 2007: Sufficiency Economy and Human Development, which praised King Bhumibol Adulyadej's self-sufficient economy theory.
Go to Profile#32787
Vladimir Sokolov
#32799
Overall Influence
1928 - 1998 (70 years)
Vladimir Sokolov was a Russian scientist in the field of zoology and ecology. He was a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Science and the Brundtland Commission. He was one of the pioneers of the Russian environmentalism movement and one of the early global sustainability advocates.
Go to Profile#32788
Tan Chin Hwee
#32800
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Tan Chin Hwee is a Singaporean businessman and professor. He currently serves as Chairman of the Energy Supply Resilience Advisory Panel within the Energy Market Authority . A Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Public Accountant in Singapore and Australia, he previously worked in DBS Bank, Keppel Corporation, Amaranth Advisors, Apollo Global Management and Trafigura before joining the EMA.
Go to Profile#32789
Norman Carlberg
#32801
Overall Influence
1928 - 2018 (90 years)
Norman K. Carlberg was an American sculptor, photographer, and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style. Early life and education Carlberg was born in Roseau, Minnesota. He was the son of Gustav Carlberg and his wife Alma Forsberg. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art and then enlisted in the Air Force. He finished his undergraduate and graduate degree in art at the Yale School of Art under Josef Albers, who was instrumental in his acceptance as a student at Yale and his nomination for a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
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Pamela Kyle Crossley
#32802
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Pamela Kyle Crossley is a historian of modern China, northern Asia, and global history and is the Charles and Elfriede Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth College. She is a founding appointment of the Dartmouth Society of Fellows.
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Tim Clutton-Brock
#32803
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Timothy Hugh Clutton-Brock is a British zoologist known for his comparative studies of the behavioural ecology of mammals, particularly red deer and meerkats. Education Clutton-Brock was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a PhD in 1972.
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Marguerite Vogt
#32804
Overall Influence
1913 - 2007 (94 years)
Marguerite Vogt was a cancer biologist and virologist. She was most noted for her research on polio and cancer at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Early life Vogt was born in Germany in 1913. The youngest daughter of Oskar Vogt and French-born Cécile Vogt-Mugnier, Vogt took her M.D. degree from the University of Berlin in 1937. Her parents were prominent neuroscientists and she grew up in an intense scientific environment. Her older sister, Marthe Vogt was a neuropharmacologist who became a fellow of the Royal Society and a professor at Cambridge.
Go to Profile#32793
Anne Phillips
#32805
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Anne Phillips , is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics , where she was previously Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003.
Go to Profile#32794
Albert Gjedde
#32806
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Albert Gjedde: is a Danish-Canadian neuroscientist. He is Professor of Neurobiology and Pharmacology at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Center of Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen. He is currently also Adjunct Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery in the Department of Neurology, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Adjunct Professor of Radiology and Radiological Science in the Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, US, Adjunct Professor of Translation...
Go to Profile#32795
Annette Lu
#32807
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Annette Lu Hsiu-lien is a Taiwanese politician. A feminist active in the tangwai movement, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 1990, and was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992. Subsequently, she served as Taoyuan County Magistrate between 1997 and 2000, and was the Vice President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008, under President Chen Shui-bian. Lu announced her intentions to run for the presidency on 6 March 2007, but withdrew to support eventual DPP nominee Frank Hsieh. Lu ran again in 2012, but withdrew for a second time, ceding the nomination to DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen.
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Magdaléna Rybáriková
#32808
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Magdaléna Rybáriková is a Slovak former professional tennis player. In her career, she won four singles titles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour. Rybáriková reached the semifinals of the 2017 Wimbledon Championships and broke into the top 30 for the first time in September 2017, and reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 17, in March 2018.
Go to Profile#32797
Faye Hammill
#32809
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Faye Hammill FRSE is a professor in the University of Glasgow, specialising in North American and British modern writing in the first half of the twentieth century, what is often called 'middlebrow'. Her recent focus is ocean liners in literature. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .
Go to Profile#32798
Younan Nowzaradan
#32810
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Younan Nowzaradan , also known as Dr. Now, is an American doctor, TV personality, and author. He specializes in vascular surgery and bariatric surgery. He is known for helping morbidly obese people lose weight on My 600-lb Life .
Go to Profile#32799
Chris Stout
#32811
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Dr. Chris E. Stout is a licensed clinical psychologist who has a varied background in multiple domains. He is the founding director of the Center for Global Initiatives which was ranked as a Top Healthcare Nonprofit by GreatNonprofits. His entrepreneurial experience is demonstrated in multiple ventures that include the areas of financial management, healthcare start-ups, engineering, two dot-coms, real estate, and executive coaching. He currently is Vice President of the Department of Research at ATI Physical Therapy, a national Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation organization.
Go to Profile#32800
Neil Abercrombie
#32812
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Neil Abercrombie is an American politician who served as the seventh governor of Hawai'i from 2010 to 2014. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Born in Buffalo, New York, Abercrombie is a graduate of Union College and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He began his political career in 1975, winning a seat in the Hawai'i House of Representatives. He served in the Hawai'i House until 1979, when he was elected to the Hawai'i State Senate. Upon the resignation of Cecil Heftel, who resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives to run for governor, Abercrombie was elected to his vacant seat in a special election in 1986, but lost the Democratic primary for a full term on the same day.
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