Can a Former President Run for President Again?

Leaving Washington, D.C., backside, the Trumps board Air Force 1 at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. 20, hours before President Biden'south inauguration. Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

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Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Forcefulness 1 at Joint Base of operations Andrews in Maryland on Jan. 20, hours earlier President Biden'southward inauguration.

Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images

The Senate had a examination vote this calendar week that cast deep uncertainty on the prospects for convicting quondam President Donald Trump on the impeachment accuse now pending against him. Without a two-thirds majority for conviction, there will not be a second vote in the Senate to bar him from futurity federal office.

Also this week, Political leader released a Forenoon Consult poll that found 56% of Republicans saying that Trump should run once more in 2024. As he left Washington, D.C., on January. twenty, he said he expected to be "dorsum in some form."

So will he seek a comeback? And if he does, what are his chances of returning to the White House?

History provides little guidance on these questions. There is lilliputian precedent for a former president running again, let lone winning. But since when has the lack of precedent bothered Donald Trump?

Only one president who was defeated for reelection has come back to win again. That was Grover Cleveland, first elected in 1884, narrowly defeated in 1888 and elected again in 1892.

Some other, far better-known president, Theodore Roosevelt, left part voluntarily in 1908, assertive his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, would continue his policies. When Taft did not, Roosevelt came dorsum to run against him 4 years later.

The Republican Party establishment of that time stood by Taft, the incumbent, and so Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate. That split the Republican vote and handed the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

And that's information technology. Aside from those two men, no defeated White House occupant has come up back to claim votes in the Electoral College. Democratic President Martin Van Buren, defeated for reelection in 1840, sought his political party'southward nomination in 1844 and 1848 merely was denied it both times. The latter time he helped plant the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and ran as its nominee, getting 10% of the popular vote but winning no states.

More than a few former presidents may have been set to exit public life by the end of their time at the top. Others surely would have liked to stay longer, simply they were sent packing, either by voters in November or by the nominating apparatus of their parties.

There take also been eight presidents who have died in office. Four in the 1800s (William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield) were succeeded by lackluster vice presidents who were non nominated for a term on their ain. Iv in the 1900s (William McKinley, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy) were succeeded by vice presidents whose parties did nominate them for a term in their own right (Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson).

Each of these 4 went on to win a term on his own, and each and then left office voluntarily. As noted to a higher place, Theodore Roosevelt later on changed his listen, and Johnson began the 1968 primary flavor as an incumbent and a candidate but ended his run at the cease of March.

The Jackson model

A statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Foursquare virtually the White House in June. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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A statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square near the White House in June.

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One model that might exist meaningful for Trump at this stage is that of President Andrew Jackson, who ran for president iii times and arguably won each fourth dimension. His first entrada, in 1824, was a four-way contest in which he clearly led in both the popular vote and the Electoral College but lacked the needed bulk in the latter.

That sent the upshot to the House of Representatives, where each state had one vote. A protracted and dubious negotiation involving candidates and congressional power brokers subsequently denied Jackson the prize. He immediately denounced that issue every bit a "corrupt deal," laying the background for another bid. In 1828, Jackson was swept into function, ousting the incumbent on a wave of populist fervor.

It is not an accident that Trump, post-obit the advice of one-time adviser Steve Bannon, spoke agreeably of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White Business firm, Trump hung Jackson's presidential portrait in the Oval Office overlooking the Resolute Desk.

It is not hard to imagine Trump invoking the spirit of Jackson's 1828 entrada against the "corrupt bargain," if he runs in 2024 against "the steal" (his shorthand for the outcome of the 2020 ballot, which he falsely claims was illegitimate).

Jackson, the ultimate outsider in his own time, makes a far amend template for Trump than either Cleveland or Teddy Roosevelt — even though the latter two were New Yorkers like Trump.

Two New York governors, two decades autonomously

For now, Cleveland remains the only ii-term president who had a time out between terms. When he offset won in 1884, he was the first Democratic president elected in 28 years, and he won by the micro-margin of just 25,000 votes nationwide. He won because he carried New York, where he was governor at the fourth dimension, adding its electoral votes to those of Democratic-leaning states in the South – which preferred a Democratic Yankee to a Republican Yankee.

The latter, James Blaine of Maine, was widely known as "Slippery Jim," and his reputation made him repugnant to the more reform-minded members of his own party. Blaine was as well faulted in that campaign for failing to renounce a zealous supporter who had called Democrats the political party of "rum, Romanism and rebellion." That phrase, which has lived on in infamy, was a derogatory reference to Democrats' "wet" sentiments on the consequence of alcohol as well as to the Roman Catholics and former secessionists to be constitute in the party tent.

Potent as it was, that linguistic communication backfired by alienating plenty Catholics in New York to elect Cleveland, himself a Protestant. His margin in his home state was a mere one thousand votes, merely it was enough to deliver a bulk in the Balloter College.

After Cleveland's first term, the election was excruciatingly close once more. The salient outcome of 1888 was the tariff on goods from foreign countries. Republicans were for information technology, making an argument not unlike Trump's own America First rhetoric of 2016. Cleveland, on the other hand, said the tariff enriched big business but hurt consumers. He won the national popular vote but not the Electoral Higher, having fallen xv,000 votes short in his abode state of New York.

But Cleveland scarcely broke stride. He continued to campaign over the ensuing years and hands won the Autonomous nomination for the third consecutive time in 1892. He then dismissed the 1-term incumbent to whom he had lost in 1888, Benjamin Harrison, who received less than a third of the Electoral College vote.

A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York City. Afterwards leaving part, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to return to the White Firm. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hibernate caption

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A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York Metropolis. After leaving office, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to render to the White House.

David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Cleveland stepped down later on his second term, every bit other reelected presidents had seen fit to do in emulation of George Washington. The Republicans reclaimed the presidency with William McKinley in 1896 and four years later renominated him with a new running mate who brought youth and vigor to the ticket. Merely 41 at the time, Theodore Roosevelt had yet been a police commissioner, a "Crude Rider" cavalry officer in the Castilian-American State of war and governor of New York.

Less than a twelvemonth into that term, McKinley was fatally shot, making Roosevelt president at age 42 (still the tape for youngest chief executive). He won a term of his own in 1904 and promptly pledged not to run again. True to his word, in 1908 he handed off to his hand-picked successor, Taft.

Roosevelt did so believing Taft would continue his policies. But if Roosevelt had managed to observe appeal as both a populist figure and a progressive, Taft more often stood with the party's business-oriented regulars. And so "T.R." decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

He did well in the nascent "principal elections" held that year, but Taft had the party machinery and controlled the convention. Roosevelt led his delegates out of the convention and organized a tertiary party, the Progressive Party (known colloquially as the "Bull Moose" party).

That autumn, Roosevelt had his revenge on Taft and the GOP. The incumbent Taft finished a poor third with just 8 votes in the Electoral Higher. But Roosevelt was non the main beneficiary, finishing a afar second to Wilson, the Democrat, who had 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88. Although the two Republican rivals' combined popular vote would take easily bested Wilson, dividing the party left them both in his wake.

A warning to the GOP?

That is the model some Republicans may fear seeing played out in 2024. If nominated, Trump would need to replicate Cleveland's unique feat from the 1890s, and he would demand to overcome the demographics and voter trends that have enabled Democrats to win the popular vote in vii of the terminal eight presidential cycles.

And if he is not nominated, Trump running as an independent or as the nominee of a third party would surely split the Republican vote and make a repeat of 1912 highly probable.

Nonetheless, the grip Trump has on half or more of the GOP voter base makes him not only formidable only unavoidable as the political party plans for the midterm elections in 2022 and the ultimate question of a nominee in 2024.

To be clear, Trump has not said he will run over again in 2024. On the day he left Washington he spoke of a render "in some form" but was vague most how that might happen. He has sent aides to discourage talk of his forming a third party.

For the time beingness, at least, Trump seems intent on wielding influence in the Republican Party he has dominated for the by v years — making information technology clear he will be involved in primaries in 2022 against Republicans who did non support his campaign to overturn the election results.

That is no idle threat. Nearly Trump supporters have shown remarkable loyalty throughout the postal service-election traumas, even subsequently the riot in the U.S. Capitol. The fierceness of that zipper has sobered those in the GOP who had idea Trump's era would wane afterwards he was defeated. But Trump has been able to concord the popular imagination inside his party, largely past disarming many that he was non defeated.

The results of the election take been certified in all 50 states by governors and land officials of both parties, and there is no evidence for whatsoever of the conspiracy theories questioning their validity. However, multiple polls accept shown Trump supporters go on to believe he was unjustly removed from office.

Bold Trump is not convicted on his impeachment charge of inciting an coup before the January. 6 invasion of the Capitol, he will not face a ban on future campaigns.

Some believe Trump might still be kept out of federal office past an invocation of the 14th Amendment. That part of the Constitution, added after the Civil War with sometime Confederate officers in listen, banned any who had "engaged in insurrection" confronting the authorities.

Just that wording could well be read to require activeness against the regime, not just incitement of others to activity by incendiary speech communication. Information technology could also require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the free speech protections of the First Amendment.

All that can be said at this point is that the old president volition settle into a post-presidential routine far from his previous homes in Washington and New York City. And the greatest obstacle to his return to power would seem to exist the blueprint of history regarding the mail service-presidential careers of his predecessors.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/30/961919674/could-trump-make-a-comeback-in-2024

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