No? Well, Abraham Lincoln did. In 1864 he was running for re-election against a very popular Democrat, General George Mc Clellan. The election was coming fast – November 8, 1864 – and Lincoln needed every northern vote he would get – and every electoral vote. An easy way to get more votes was to get more people who could vote. So Lincoln pushed Nevada to become a state. Nevada did; on October 21, 1864. To make it official, Lincoln ordered the Constitution of the new State of Nevada to be telegraphed to Washington D. C. Every word. It took two days for the document to be sent to the War Department – at a cost of $4,313.27; $77,634 today. Was it worth the cost? Well, Lincoln was re-elected.
For trivia buffs, Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 as a Whig, ran in the 1864 election as a National Union candidate, a party that became what we now call the Republican Party.