At the very least a half-dozen former presidents have sought to return to the White Home after dropping, however solely Grover Cleveland succeeded.
Different presidents have sought to return to the White Home with out success. Martin Van Buren, who had misplaced his bid for re-election in 1840, mounted a brand new marketing campaign as a Free Soil candidate in 1848, however garnered solely about 10 % of the vote and received no states. Millard Fillmore, one other 19th-century one-term president rejected by his personal celebration, likewise tried the third-party route in staging a comeback marketing campaign in 1856 because the nominee of the Know Nothings, profitable 22 % and only one state.
A few presidents who left workplace voluntarily after two phrases nonetheless modified their minds and sought to return again 4 years later with out success. Ulysses S. Grant allowed his supporters to advertise him for the Republican nomination in 1880, solely to see the bid fizzle on the conference, whereas Theodore Roosevelt bolted his celebration and ran as head of the brand new Progressive or Bull Moose Get together in 1912, succeeding solely in taking down his handpicked Republican successor, William Howard Taft, and turning the White Home over to the Democrats.
Herbert Hoover, after being turned out in 1932, held out hope that the Republicans would anoint him as their nominee once more in 1936 and 1940 solely to be spurned. More moderen defeated one-term presidents like Jimmy Carter and George Bush entertained no such fantasies, though Gerald R. Ford did briefly think about turning into a vice-presidential candidate 4 years after dropping the White Home.
Cleveland is the one defeated president who ever moved again into the White Home. A fiscally conservative Democrat, he received his first time period in 1884 regardless of being accused of fathering a baby out of wedlock, making him the nation’s 22nd president. He grew to become the one bachelor president to marry whereas within the White Home when he wed Frances Folsom, who at 21 was 27 years youthful than him.
Though he received the favored vote 4 years later, he misplaced the Electoral School to Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, over his help for decreasing tariffs on international items. Identified for “an inherited pressure of stubbornness that gleamed in his clear blue eyes earlier than he was 5 years previous,” as Allan Nevins put it in his Pulitzer-winning biography, Cleveland refused to fade away and beat Harrison in 1892, fulfilling Frances’s prediction and turning into the 24th president.
One vital distinction between Cleveland and Mr. Trump is that Cleveland received the favored vote in all three presidential elections he ran in, whereas Mr. Trump misplaced the favored vote in each 2016 and 2020. “Grover had the benefit of in style help that Trump lacks,” stated Matthew Algeo, the creator of “The President Is a Sick Man” about secret surgical procedure Cleveland had whereas in workplace.