Theodore Thomas was born in the town of Lamartine, Wisconsin, in Fond du Lac County, in September 1870.
[6] Shortly after leaving the Legislature, in March 1909, Thomas was appointed to serve as district attorney of Price County, Wisconsin, after governor James O. Davidson suspended district attorney W. K. Parkinson for failure to prosecute liquor cases.
Before the election, he strangely admitted that he intended to cast his vote at the general election for the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, but if Taft won the state of Wisconsin, Thomas pledged to cast his electoral vote for Taft as instructed.
Later that decade, Thomas was appointed as a commissioner of the circuit court in Rusk County, and served in that role for several years.
[11] That fall, he made his first bid for U.S. House of Representatives, launching a primary challenge against Adolphus Peter Nelson with La Follette's endorsement in Wisconsin's 11th congressional district.
[13] After flirting with another run for congress in 1924,[14] Thomas entered the race in 1926 to challenge the incumbent, Hubert H. Peavey, who by then had already won the Republican primary.
Thomas ran as an independent progressive Republican in the general election,[15] but received only 27% of the vote.