Can a Former President Ever Run Again?

Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps lath Air Force One at Joint Base of operations Andrews in Maryland on Jan. 20, hours before President Biden's inauguration. Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

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Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images

Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Strength One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. xx, hours before President Biden'south inauguration.

Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images

The Senate had a test vote this week that bandage deep doubtfulness on the prospects for convicting former President Donald Trump on the impeachment charge now pending against him. Without a ii-thirds majority for conviction, there will not exist a second vote in the Senate to bar him from future federal office.

Also this calendar week, Politico released a Morning Consult poll that institute 56% of Republicans proverb that Trump should run again in 2024. Every bit he left Washington, D.C., on January. 20, he said he expected to be "dorsum in some grade."

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

History provides petty guidance on these questions. In that location is piddling precedent for a one-time president running once more, let alone 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.

Another, far better-known president, Theodore Roosevelt, left office voluntarily in 1908, believing his paw-picked successor, William Howard Taft, would continue his policies. When Taft did non, Roosevelt came back to run against him iv years later.

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

And that'due south it. Bated from those 2 men, no defeated White House occupant has come up dorsum to claim votes in the Electoral Higher. Autonomous President Martin Van Buren, defeated for reelection in 1840, sought his party's nomination in 1844 and 1848 merely was denied it both times. The latter time he helped found the anti-slavery Complimentary Soil Party and ran as its nominee, getting 10% of the pop vote but winning no states.

More a few former presidents may take been ready to get out public life by the end of their fourth dimension at the acme. Others surely would have liked to stay longer, but they were sent packing, either by voters in November or past the nominating appliance of their parties.

There have also been viii presidents who have died in role. Four in the 1800s (William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield) were succeeded past lackluster vice presidents who were not nominated for a term on their own. 4 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 four went on to win a term on his own, and each then left function voluntarily. As noted above, Theodore Roosevelt afterward inverse his heed, and Johnson began the 1968 chief flavour as an incumbent and a candidate but ended his run at the end of March.

The Jackson model

A statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square near the White House in June. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hibernate explanation

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Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

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

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

One model that might be meaningful for Trump at this stage is that of President Andrew Jackson, who ran for president three times and arguably won each time. His get-go campaign, in 1824, was a 4-way contest in which he clearly led in both the popular vote and the Balloter College but lacked the needed bulk in the latter.

That sent the issue to the House of Representatives, where each state had one vote. A protracted and dubious negotiation involving candidates and congressional ability brokers after denied Jackson the prize. He immediately denounced that outcome as a "corrupt bargain," laying the groundwork for another bid. In 1828, Jackson was swept into office, ousting the incumbent on a wave of populist fervor.

It is non an accident that Trump, post-obit the advice of onetime adviser Steve Bannon, spoke approvingly of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White Firm, Trump hung Jackson's presidential portrait in the Oval Part overlooking the Resolute Desk.

It is not difficult to imagine Trump invoking the spirit of Jackson's 1828 campaign against the "corrupt deal," if he runs in 2024 against "the steal" (his shorthand for the consequence of the 2020 election, 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 2 were New Yorkers like Trump.

Two New York governors, two decades apart

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

The latter, James Blaine of Maine, was widely known every bit "Slippery Jim," and his reputation made him repugnant to the more reform-minded members of his ain party. Blaine was also faulted in that entrada for failing to renounce a zealous supporter who had called Democrats the 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 booze as well as to the Roman Catholics and former secessionists to be plant in the party tent.

Stiff equally it was, that language backfired by alienating enough Catholics in New York to elect Cleveland, himself a Protestant. His margin in his home state was a mere one thousand votes, just information technology was plenty to deliver a bulk in the Electoral College.

After Cleveland's first term, the election was excruciatingly close over again. The salient issue of 1888 was the tariff on appurtenances from foreign countries. Republicans were for it, making an statement not different Trump's own America First rhetoric of 2016. Cleveland, on the other manus, said the tariff enriched large business organization but hurt consumers. He won the national popular vote but non the Electoral College, having fallen 15,000 votes short in his home state of New York.

But Cleveland scarcely broke step. He connected to campaign over the ensuing years and easily won the Democratic nomination for the 3rd consecutive time in 1892. He then dismissed the one-term incumbent to whom he had lost in 1888, Benjamin Harrison, who received less than a 3rd of the Electoral College vote.

A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York Urban center. Afterwards leaving office, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to return to the White House. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hibernate caption

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A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York Metropolis. Subsequently leaving office, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to return to the White Business firm.

David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Cleveland stepped down subsequently his second term, as other reelected presidents had seen fit to do in emulation of George Washington. The Republicans reclaimed the presidency with William McKinley in 1896 and 4 years later renominated him with a new running mate who brought youth and vigor to the ticket. Merely 41 at the fourth dimension, Theodore Roosevelt had still been a police commissioner, a "Rough Rider" cavalry officer in the Castilian-American War and governor of New York.

Less than a year into that term, McKinley was fatally shot, making Roosevelt president at age 42 (withal 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 and so believing Taft would continue his policies. But if Roosevelt had managed to notice appeal every bit both a populist figure and a progressive, Taft more often stood with the party'due south business organization-oriented regulars. So "T.R." decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

He did well in the nascent "primary elections" held that twelvemonth, but Taft had the political party machinery and controlled the convention. Roosevelt led his delegates out of the convention and organized a third party, the Progressive Political 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 not the main beneficiary, finishing a distant second to Wilson, the Democrat, who had 435 balloter votes to Roosevelt'due south 88. Although the two Republican rivals' combined pop vote would take easily bested Wilson, dividing the political party left them both in his wake.

A warning to the GOP?

That is the model some Republicans may fearfulness seeing played out in 2024. If nominated, Trump would demand to replicate Cleveland's unique feat from the 1890s, and he would need to overcome the demographics and voter trends that have enabled Democrats to win the pop vote in seven of the final 8 presidential cycles.

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

Even so, the grip Trump has on half or more than of the GOP voter base of operations makes him non but formidable but unavoidable as the party plans for the midterm elections in 2022 and the ultimate question of a nominee in 2024.

To exist clear, Trump has not said he will run once again in 2024. On the 24-hour interval he left Washington he spoke of a render "in some form" but was vague about how that might happen. He has sent aides to discourage talk of his forming a 3rd political party.

For the time being, at least, Trump seems intent on wielding influence in the Republican Party he has dominated for the past five years — making it articulate he will be involved in primaries in 2022 confronting Republicans who did not support his entrada to overturn the election results.

That is no idle threat. Most Trump supporters have shown remarkable loyalty throughout the post-election traumas, even after the riot in the U.S. Capitol. The fierceness of that attachment has sobered those in the GOP who had idea Trump'due south era would wane after he was defeated. Merely Trump has been able to hold the pop imagination within his party, largely by convincing many that he was not defeated.

The results of the election have been certified in all 50 states past governors and state officials of both parties, and there is no evidence for any of the conspiracy theories questioning their validity. Nonetheless, multiple polls have shown Trump supporters continue to believe he was unjustly removed from office.

Assuming Trump is non bedevilled on his impeachment accuse of inciting an insurrection before the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, he will not face up a ban on future campaigns.

Some believe Trump might yet exist kept out of federal office by an invocation of the 14th Subpoena. That function of the Constitution, added later on the Civil War with onetime Confederate officers in mind, banned whatsoever who had "engaged in insurrection" against the government.

Only that diction could well be read to require action against the government, not just incitement of others to action by incendiary voice communication. It could too require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the free spoken communication protections of the Outset Amendment.

All that can be said at this point is that the erstwhile president will 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 ability would seem to be the pattern of history regarding the post-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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