Can an Ex President Run for Office Again

Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Strength Ane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. xx, hours earlier President Biden's inauguration. Pete Marovich/Puddle/Getty Images hibernate caption

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Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps lath Air Force I at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on January. 20, hours before President Biden's inauguration.

Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images

The Senate had a test vote this week that cast deep doubt on the prospects for convicting one-time President Donald Trump on the impeachment accuse now pending against him. Without a two-thirds majority for conviction, there will not exist a 2nd vote in the Senate to bar him from time to come federal office.

Also this calendar week, Political leader released a Morn Consult poll that institute 56% of Republicans saying that Trump should run again in 2024. As he left Washington, D.C., on January. 20, he said he expected to be "back in some grade."

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 piffling precedent for a former president running again, let alone winning. Simply since when has the lack of precedent bothered Donald Trump?

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

Another, far better-known president, Theodore Roosevelt, left part voluntarily in 1908, believing his mitt-picked successor, William Howard Taft, would continue his policies. When Taft did not, Roosevelt came back to run against him four years later.

The Republican Political party institution of that fourth dimension stood by Taft, the incumbent, so Roosevelt ran every bit a third-political party candidate. That split the Republican vote and handed the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

And that's information technology. Aside from those 2 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 party's nomination in 1844 and 1848 but was denied it both times. The latter time he helped plant the anti-slavery Free Soil Political party and ran as its nominee, getting x% of the pop vote but winning no states.

More a few one-time presidents may have been gear up to leave public life by the end of their time at the summit. Others surely would have liked to stay longer, merely they were sent packing, either by voters in November or by the nominating appliance of their parties.

There have also been 8 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. Four in the 1900s (William McKinley, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy) were succeeded past 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 iv went on to win a term on his own, and each then left function voluntarily. As noted higher up, Theodore Roosevelt later changed his mind, and Johnson began the 1968 primary flavor every bit 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 hide caption

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Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

A statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Foursquare well-nigh 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 3 times and arguably won each time. His first campaign, in 1824, was a 4-way contest in which he clearly led in both the pop vote and the Electoral Higher just lacked the needed majority in the latter.

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

It is not an accident that Trump, following the advice of onetime adviser Steve Bannon, spoke approvingly of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White House, 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'due south 1828 entrada against the "corrupt bargain," if he runs in 2024 against "the steal" (his shorthand for the outcome of the 2020 election, which he falsely claims was illegitimate).

Jackson, the ultimate outsider in his own time, makes a far better template for Trump than either Cleveland or Teddy Roosevelt — even though the latter 2 were New Yorkers like Trump.

2 New York governors, two decades apart

For now, Cleveland remains the only two-term president who had a time out between terms. When he first won in 1884, he was the first Democratic president elected in 28 years, and he won past the micro-margin of only 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 Southward – 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 ain party. Blaine was likewise faulted in that campaign for failing to renounce a zealous supporter who had chosen 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 issue of booze besides every bit to the Roman Catholics and former secessionists to be found in the political party tent.

Potent as it was, that language backfired by alienating enough Catholics in New York to elect Cleveland, himself a Protestant. His margin in his home country was a mere grand votes, simply it was enough to deliver a bulk in the Electoral Higher.

Later Cleveland's first term, the ballot was excruciatingly close again. The salient result of 1888 was the tariff on appurtenances from foreign countries. Republicans were for information technology, making an argument not different Trump's own America First rhetoric of 2016. Cleveland, on the other hand, said the tariff enriched large business only hurt consumers. He won the national popular vote but not the Electoral College, having fallen xv,000 votes short in his home state of New York.

But Cleveland scarcely broke stride. He continued to campaign over the ensuing years and hands won the Democratic nomination for the third consecutive fourth dimension in 1892. He so dismissed the one-term incumbent to whom he had lost in 1888, Benjamin Harrison, who received less than a third of the Electoral Higher vote.

A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York City. Later on leaving office, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to return to the White House. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hide caption

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

David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Cleveland stepped down later his 2d term, equally 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. Simply 41 at the time, Theodore Roosevelt had nonetheless been a police commissioner, a "Rough Rider" cavalry officeholder 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 historic period 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 proceed his policies. But if Roosevelt had managed to discover appeal equally both a populist effigy and a progressive, Taft more than ofttimes stood with the party's business-oriented regulars. Then "T.R." decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

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

That fall, Roosevelt had his revenge on Taft and the GOP. The incumbent Taft finished a poor third with just eight votes in the Electoral Higher. But Roosevelt was not the chief beneficiary, finishing a distant second to Wilson, the Democrat, who had 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88. Although the 2 Republican rivals' combined popular vote would have easily bested Wilson, dividing the party left them both in his wake.

A alarm to the GOP?

That is the model some Republicans may fright seeing played out in 2024. If nominated, Trump would need 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 terminal eight presidential cycles.

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

Nonetheless, the grip Trump has on one-half or more than of the GOP voter base makes him not only formidable but unavoidable as the 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 again in 2024. On the twenty-four hour period he left Washington he spoke of a return "in some form" simply was vague about how that might happen. He has sent aides to discourage talk of his forming a third party.

For the time being, at least, Trump seems intent on wielding influence in the Republican Political party he has dominated for the by 5 years — making it clear he will exist involved in primaries in 2022 against Republicans who did not support his entrada to overturn the election results.

That is no idle threat. Most Trump supporters accept shown remarkable loyalty throughout the post-election traumas, fifty-fifty after the anarchism in the U.Southward. 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. But Trump has been able to hold the popular imagination within his party, largely by disarming many that he was not 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 bear witness for any of the conspiracy theories questioning their validity. Even so, multiple polls have shown Trump supporters keep to believe he was unjustly removed from role.

Assuming Trump is non convicted on his impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection before the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, he will non confront a ban on future campaigns.

Some believe Trump might still exist kept out of federal office by an invocation of the 14th Amendment. That part of the Constitution, added later on the Civil War with former Confederate officers in heed, banned any who had "engaged in insurrection" against the government.

Simply that wording could well exist read to require action against the government, not just incitement of others to action by incendiary voice communication. Information technology could also require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the gratis speech communication protections of the Kickoff Subpoena.

All that can be said at this point is that the former 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 render to ability would seem to be the design 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