In America’s 2024 presidential election, there are two political anomalies in play. Each has a bearing on the race, though in differing degrees and during various stages of the campaign.
The first historical anomaly is that Donald Trump is attempting to be only the second former president ever to win a non-consecutive term of office. The historical track record does not auger well.
- After losing his 1840 presidential reelection bid to William Henry Harrison, former President Martin Van Buren lost Democratic nomination in 1844 and later lost as presidential nominee on the on the Free-Soil Party ticket.
- Having succeeded to White House upon the death of President Zachary Taylor 1850 and then failing in 1852 to secure his Whig Party’s nomination, the execrable 13th President (exhibit A for triskaidekaphobia), Millard Fillmore, failed in his 1856 comeback bid as the standard bearer of the aptly named Know Nothings.
- After having won two consecutive terms from 1869-1877, former President Ulysses S. Grant sought a non-consecutive third term in 1880 but lost the GOP nomination to James A. Garfield. (Garfield won the election and later became the second president to be assassinated.) The largest obstacle Grant faced was his party and the public’s opposition to a president breaking Washington’s precedent by serving more than two terms of office.
- In 1912, having taken a term off after having succeeded in having William Howard Taft succeed him as president, Teddy Roosevelt became disenchanted with the Ohioan’s conservatism. Roosevelt challenged Taft for the 1912 GOP nomination; lost; ran as a third-party candidate on the Bull Moose ticket; and lost again. (Democrat Woodrow Wilson garnered a 41.8% plurality of the popular vote and an electoral college landslide.)
- Finally, eight years following his landslide defeat to FDR, former President Herbert Hoover subtly maneuvered for a rematch but did not obtain the GOP’s 1940 presidential nomination.
The first president to accomplish a non-consecutive term of office was our 22nd and 25th president, Grover Cleveland. In 1884, Cleveland became the first Democrat President since the Civil War by defeating Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. Interestingly, Blaine’s presidential bid was hamstrung by the “Mugwumps,” reform Republicans who opted to support the more progressive Cleveland. Then, in 1884, Cleveland lost his reelection bid to Republican Benjamin Harrison (grandson of President William Henry Harrison). The reason? Despite Cleveland again winning the popular vote for a second time (and the first time since 1856 that Democrats had won it in consecutive elections), Harrison carried the electoral college. Finally, in the rubber match between two presidents, Cleveland again won both the popular vote and, this time, the electoral college, making him the first president to win non-consecutive terms and Harrison the first incumbent GOP president to lose a reelection bid.
The relevance of President Cleveland’s political resiliency to the 2024 race rests in allowing former President Trump’s supporters to accurately cite the historical record and argue that such a presidential comeback had already occurred once and could potentially happen again. The parallels were thought to be propitious: in attempting to attain a second, non-consecutive term, Mr. Trump would likely be running against the individual who ousted him from the office, Mr. Biden. I have previously argued that Mr. Biden will ultimately not be his party’s nominee in 2024. Presently, however, he remains the Democrats’ presumed nominee. If this holds true and Mr. Biden is his party’s standard bearer for the 2024 presidential election, rarely will I ever be happier to be mistaken.
Importantly, Mr. Trump’s supporters’ argument was necessarily aimed first at GOP primary voters, for they would determine the best standard bearer to defeat the Democratic incumbent. A disheartening fact recurs throughout the above-referenced unsuccessful attempts to win a non-consecutive term of office: specifically, only Van Buren and the victorious Cleveland were able to secure their party’s nominations when seeking a non-consecutive term. (In both instances, each man was nominated for a third consecutive time.)
Further evincing the difficulty of a former president winning his party’s nomination is that there have been incumbent presidents who have failed to receive their party’s nomination for a second consecutive term. Initially elected president in his own right in 1852, four miserable years later Franklin Pierce lost the 1856 Democrat Party nomination. He is the only incumbent president who, after serving his full four-year term, accomplished such a rebuke from his own party.
Then, there are the other former presidents who were initially elected to the Vice Presidency and later ascended to the White House upon the death of the president:
- In 1844, John Tyler failed to get the Whig Party’s nomination.
- In 1852, the aforementioned reprobate, Millard Fillmore, was also defeated for the Whig Party’s nomination.
- In 1868, Democrat Andrew Johnson, elected on a “Unity” ticket with the martyred Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, failed to obtain the Democrat’s nomination.
- And, in 1884, Chester A. Arthur failed to secure the GOP’s nomination.
Consequently, Mr. Trump and his GOP supporters faced an uphill task in convincing the party to nominate him again—if, for no other reason, the Republican Party had never thrice nominated an individual for president. The facts were clear: former President Trump was triumphant in 2016; he was defeated in 2020. Thus, the crux: would a new GOP nominee have a better chance of winning? Did the rejection of his 2020 reelection bid constitute the electorate’s final judgment upon Mr. Trump’s presidency and his political viability?
Obviously, Mr. Trump and his supporters argued no, and the bulk of GOP primary voters agreed. Consequently, absent any unlikely occurrence, Republicans will have thrice nominated Donald Trump to be their standard bearer and must persuade the electorate it erred in rejecting his 2020 reelection bid, especially those undecided voters in the swing states that will determine the electoral college.
Further increasing former President Trump and his supporter’s uphill struggle, there is one key distinction to be made between the non-consecutive bids of the two New Yorkers, former Presidents Cleveland and Trump: due to a split within his opponents ranks, in all three of his presidential campaigns, Mr. Cleveland won the popular vote; due to a split within his own party’s ranks, in two presidential elections, Mr. Trump has never won the popular vote. Clearly, it will be a difficult undertaking, though not an impossible one, based upon the 1892 triumph of MAGA Democrats (Make America Grover Again).
Yet, in addition to a former president seeking a non-consecutive term, there is another historical anomaly in play with which neither Cleveland nor Harrison had to contend, but one which Misters Trump and Biden must:
America’s first lame duck election.