Former U S President Run for Office Again

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

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Leaving Washington, D.C., backside, the Trumps lath Air Forcefulness I at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. 20, hours earlier President Biden's inauguration.

Pete Marovich/Puddle/Getty Images

The Senate had a test vote this week that bandage deep uncertainty on the prospects for convicting sometime President Donald Trump on the impeachment accuse now pending against him. Without a two-thirds majority for conviction, there will non be a second vote in the Senate to bar him from time to come federal office.

Besides this week, Political leader released a Morning Consult poll that found 56% of Republicans saying that Trump should run again in 2024. As he left Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, he said he expected to exist "dorsum in some class."

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 niggling precedent for a erstwhile president running again, let lonely winning. Only since when has the lack of precedent bothered Donald Trump?

Only i president who was defeated for reelection has come dorsum 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 hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, would proceed his policies. When Taft did non, Roosevelt came back to run against him four years later.

The Republican Party establishment of that time stood by Taft, the incumbent, then Roosevelt ran equally a 3rd-political party candidate. That separate the Republican vote and handed the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

And that'southward it. Aside from those two men, no defeated White House occupant has come back to merits votes in the Electoral College. Democratic President Martin Van Buren, defeated for reelection in 1840, sought his party'southward nomination in 1844 and 1848 only was denied it both times. The latter fourth dimension he helped establish the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and ran every bit its nominee, getting ten% of the popular vote merely winning no states.

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

There have likewise been eight presidents who take died in office. Iv 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 own. Four 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 ain, and each so left role voluntarily. Every bit noted in a higher place, Theodore Roosevelt later changed his mind, and Johnson began the 1968 master flavor every bit an incumbent and a candidate but ended his run at the finish 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 Square near the White Firm in June.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

One model that might exist 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 four-style contest in which he clearly led in both the popular vote and the Electoral College but lacked the needed majority in the latter.

That sent the effect to the Business firm of Representatives, where each state had one vote. A protracted and dubious negotiation involving candidates and congressional power brokers later on denied Jackson the prize. He immediately denounced that outcome as a "decadent deal," laying the groundwork for another bid. In 1828, Jackson was swept into role, ousting the incumbent on a wave of populist fervor.

Information technology is not an blow that Trump, following the communication of onetime adviser Steve Bannon, spoke approvingly of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White Business firm, Trump hung Jackson'south presidential portrait in the Oval Office overlooking the Resolute Desk.

It is not hard to imagine Trump invoking the spirit of Jackson'south 1828 campaign confronting 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 fourth dimension, makes a far ameliorate template for Trump than either Cleveland or Teddy Roosevelt — even though the latter two were New Yorkers like Trump.

2 New York governors, two decades autonomously

For now, Cleveland remains the simply 2-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 merely 25,000 votes nationwide. He won because he carried New York, where he was governor at the time, adding its electoral votes to those of Democratic-leaning states in the Southward – which preferred a Autonomous Yankee to a Republican Yankee.

The latter, James Blaine of Maine, was widely known equally "Slippery Jim," and his reputation made him repugnant to the more reform-minded members of his ain party. Blaine was also faulted in that campaign 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 issue of alcohol as well as to the Roman Catholics and former secessionists to be found in the political party tent.

Potent equally information technology 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 yard votes, only it was enough to evangelize a majority in the Electoral College.

After Cleveland's first term, the ballot was excruciatingly close again. The salient issue of 1888 was the tariff on goods from foreign countries. Republicans were for it, making an argument non unlike Trump's own America First rhetoric of 2016. Cleveland, on the other paw, said the tariff enriched large business concern but hurt consumers. He won the national popular vote only non the Electoral College, having fallen fifteen,000 votes brusk in his habitation land of New York.

But Cleveland scarcely bankrupt stride. He continued to campaign over the ensuing years and easily won the Democratic nomination for the tertiary 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 third of the Electoral College vote.

A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York Urban center. After leaving role, 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 return to the White House.

David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Cleveland stepped downwardly after his 2d 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 four years later renominated him with a new running mate who brought youth and vigor to the ticket. Only 41 at the fourth dimension, Theodore Roosevelt had nevertheless been a law commissioner, a "Rough Rider" cavalry officer in the Spanish-American War and governor of New York.

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

Roosevelt did so assertive Taft would proceed his policies. Merely if Roosevelt had managed to discover entreatment as both a populist figure and a progressive, Taft more oftentimes stood with the party'due south business concern-oriented regulars. So "T.R." decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

He did well in the nascent "main elections" held that yr, just Taft had the party machinery and controlled the convention. Roosevelt led his delegates out of the convention and organized a 3rd political party, the Progressive Party (known colloquially every bit the "Bull Moose" political party).

That fall, Roosevelt had his revenge on Taft and the GOP. The incumbent Taft finished a poor 3rd with only viii votes in the Electoral College. But Roosevelt was non the main beneficiary, finishing a distant second to Wilson, the Democrat, who had 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt'southward 88. Although the ii Republican rivals' combined popular vote would have easily bested Wilson, dividing the party left them both in his wake.

A warning 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 7 of the last eight presidential cycles.

And if he is not nominated, Trump running as an independent or equally the nominee of a 3rd party would surely split up the Republican vote and make a repeat of 1912 highly likely.

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

To be clear, Trump has non said he volition run again in 2024. On the day he left Washington he spoke of a render "in some course" merely was vague about how that might happen. He has sent aides to discourage talk of his forming a third political party.

For the time being, at least, Trump seems intent on wielding influence in the Republican Political party he has dominated for the by five years — making information technology clear he volition exist involved in primaries in 2022 against Republicans who did not support his campaign to overturn the ballot results.

That is no idle threat. About Trump supporters have shown remarkable loyalty throughout the postal service-election traumas, fifty-fifty afterwards 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 after he was defeated. Only Trump has been able to concur the popular imagination inside his party, largely past convincing many that he was not defeated.

The results of the election have been certified in all fifty states past governors and country 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 function.

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

Some believe Trump might still be kept out of federal function past an invocation of the 14th Subpoena. That part of the Constitution, added later on the Civil State of war with sometime Amalgamated officers in mind, banned whatever who had "engaged in coup" against the government.

But that wording could well exist read to require activeness against the government, not simply incitement of others to activeness by incendiary speech. It could besides require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the gratis speech communication protections of the First Amendment.

All that tin can exist said at this indicate is that the former president will settle into a postal service-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 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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