Could Trump Run Again in Four Years

Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Force One at Articulation Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. xx, hours before President Biden'southward inauguration. Pete Marovich/Puddle/Getty Images hide caption

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Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Force 1 at Articulation Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. twenty, hours earlier President Biden's inauguration.

Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images

The Senate had a exam vote this week that cast deep doubtfulness on the prospects for convicting quondam President Donald Trump on the impeachment charge at present pending against him. Without a ii-thirds majority for conviction, in that location will not be a second vote in the Senate to bar him from time to come federal role.

Also this calendar week, Politico 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. twenty, he said he expected to exist "back in some class."

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

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

But one president who was defeated for reelection has come back to win once more. 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 continue his policies. When Taft did not, Roosevelt came back to run against him four years later.

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

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

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

There accept as well 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 not 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 own, and each then left office voluntarily. As noted to a higher place, Theodore Roosevelt later changed his mind, 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 Square almost the White House in June. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hide explanation

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

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

One model that might be meaningful for Trump at this phase is that of President Andrew Jackson, who ran for president three times and arguably won each time. His outset entrada, in 1824, was a iv-way 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 issue to the House 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 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, following the advice of one-time adviser Steve Bannon, spoke approvingly of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White House, 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 against the "corrupt bargain," if he runs in 2024 confronting "the steal" (his shorthand for the outcome of the 2020 election, which he falsely claims was illegitimate).

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

Two New York governors, 2 decades apart

For now, Cleveland remains the simply two-term president who had a time out between terms. When he showtime won in 1884, he was the first Autonomous 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 Due south – which preferred a Autonomous Yankee to a Republican Yankee.

The latter, James Blaine of Maine, was widely known as "Slippery Jim," and his reputation fabricated him repugnant to the more reform-minded members of his ain party. Blaine was also faulted in that campaign for declining 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' "moisture" sentiments on the issue of booze as well as 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 state was a mere thousand votes, but it was plenty to deliver a majority in the Electoral Higher.

After Cleveland's kickoff term, the ballot was excruciatingly close again. The salient issue of 1888 was the tariff on goods from strange countries. Republicans were for it, making an argument not unlike Trump'southward own America First rhetoric of 2016. Cleveland, on the other manus, said the tariff enriched big business organisation but hurt consumers. He won the national popular vote but non the Electoral College, having fallen fifteen,000 votes short in his dwelling house state of New York.

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

A statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York Urban center. After leaving office, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to return to the White Business firm. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hide caption

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

David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Cleveland stepped down later on 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 four years after renominated him with a new running mate who brought youth and vigor to the ticket. Just 41 at the time, Theodore Roosevelt had nonetheless 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 (even so the tape for youngest principal executive). He won a term of his own in 1904 and promptly pledged not to run again. Truthful to his word, in 1908 he handed off to his paw-picked successor, Taft.

Roosevelt did so believing Taft would continue his policies. But if Roosevelt had managed to discover appeal as both a populist figure and a progressive, Taft more oftentimes 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 "primary elections" held that year, just 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 Party (known colloquially as the "Bull Moose" 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 College. Just Roosevelt was not the primary beneficiary, finishing a distant 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 alarm to the GOP?

That is the model some Republicans may fear seeing played out in 2024. If nominated, Trump would need to replicate Cleveland'south 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 last eight presidential cycles.

And if he is not nominated, Trump running as an contained or as the nominee of a third party would surely divide 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 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 articulate, Trump has not said he will run again in 2024. On the day he left Washington he spoke of a return "in some class" but was vague nigh how that might happen. He has sent aides to discourage talk of his forming a tertiary political party.

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

That is no idle threat. Most Trump supporters accept shown remarkable loyalty throughout the post-election traumas, fifty-fifty afterwards the riot in the U.Due south. Capitol. The fierceness of that zipper has sobered those in the GOP who had thought Trump's era would wane subsequently he was defeated. But Trump has been able to agree the pop imagination within his party, largely by convincing many that he was not defeated.

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

Assuming Trump is not bedevilled on his impeachment accuse of inciting an insurrection before the Jan. 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 Subpoena. That part of the Constitution, added later on the Ceremonious War with former Amalgamated officers in mind, banned any who had "engaged in insurrection" against the government.

But that wording could well be read to crave activeness against the government, not just incitement of others to activeness by incendiary speech communication. Information technology could also require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the costless speech communication protections of the Starting time Amendment.

All that tin be said at this indicate is that the former 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 render 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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