Branstad served as the 39th governor of Iowa from 1983 to 1999. After a first retirement from politics, he served from 2003 to 2009 as President of Des Moines University, a private medical osteopathic school. In 2010 he ran for governor again and defeated Democratic incumbent Chet Culver to become the state's 42nd governor. He was reelected to a sixth term in 2014. His tenure of 22 years, 4 months, and 13 days, makes him the longest-serving governor of any state in American history, having surpassed in December 2015 New York's George Clinton 8,169 days in office.