“When you’re running in Montana as a guy who lives in his parents’ basement, it’s good to point out that you went to school at an accredited university,” said Blewett, who went on to become the youngest state senator in Montana history.

When candidates return to home districts after receiving a Harvard degree, they can convince voters that they are using the skills they acquired for the benefit of local constituents, Blewett said.

“I think a lot of people appreciate the fact that someone would go to Harvard and return to Montana,” he said.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Regardless of whether candidates use their school days as a foil for their current policies or as useful selling points in contentious elections, they almost always benefit both intellectually and materially from the substance of their Harvard education.

One crucial advantage comes during fundraising, when Harvard graduates are able to take advantage of a nation-wide network of well-connected Harvard affiliates.

“People who attended Harvard tend to think of themselves as lifelong alumni,” Payne said. “They will help a brother or sister, a fellow ‘Harvardian.’”

The benefits of a Harvard degree extend beyond election night, as elected officials cull advisers and appointees from an exceptionally talented pool of school friends and acquaintances.

Obama is known to have filled his administration with Ivy League graduates, many of whom attended Harvard. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew ’78, Education Secretary Arne S. Duncan ’86, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun L. Donovan ’87, and Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Alan B. Krueger all hold Harvard degrees.

In 2010, Obama appointed Laurence H. Tribe ’62, one of his former professors at the Law School, as senior counselor for access to justice in the United States Justice Department.

Other legislators said that a Harvard education, especially at the graduate school level, helped make them better-informed lawmakers.

U.S. Representative Stephen F. Lynch, who attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1999 while still a state senator, is one of these legislators.

“[After the Kennedy School], I think I was probably as well-versed on foreign policy issues as I am now, but now I do it as a full-time job, and I’m on a foreign policy sub-committee [in the House],” Lynch told The Crimson in an April interview.

Less than two years after graduating, Lynch won a special election and, with it, the job of representing the ninth district on Capitol Hill.

Such an experience is not uncommon, especially at the Kennedy School. U.S. Representative James R. Langevin, currently a Rhode Island congressman, was a state representative when he enrolled at the Kennedy School in 1993.