How Donald Trump seeks to follow in the footsteps of first DEMOCRAT president elected after the Civil War

Donald Trump is attempting a feat that only one other president in history has done before: return to the White House after losing the presidential election four years earlier.

The only president to date to leave office for a term and then stage a comeback was more than 100 years ago with the reelection of President Grover Cleveland.

But the similarities between Trump and Cleveland’s White House bids for a second term pretty much end there. 

The circumstances around Trump’s campaign to return to office have almost nothing in common with what happened the last and only time a president pulled this off.

Donald Trump is attempting to return to the White House after losing the 2020 election. The only president to return to the presidency after a loss and four years out of office was President Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States.

First elected in 1884, he was the first Democrat to serve as president after the Civil War. But he lost the 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison.

Then, four years later in 1892, Cleveland won the Democratic nomination again – and returned to the White House for a second term serving from 1893 to 1897.

Since then, several former presidents have tried to return to office, but none have been successful so far.

‘Cleveland, when he left the White House, when he lost, was not spoiling for a comeback,’ said biographer Troy Senik, author of ‘A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland.’

‘For the first two, two and a half years, after he was out, nobody really thought he would come back. He didn’t think he would come back,’ Senik said.

Cleveland in fact actually felt pretty satisfied that he had one good term and the country hand rendered its verdict, according to Senik.

‘He was sort of a uniquely non ambitious president.’

When Cleveland lost the 1888 election, it was a very close race, and Cleveland actually won the popular vote despite losing the Electoral College.

President Grover Cleveland served for two nonconsecutive terms in the White House. He is the only president to have done so. He was first elected in 1884, but lost his reelection in 1888. He then won the 1892 election to serve another four years

When he lost the 1888 election, Cleveland did not question the results. He also did not immediately signal he would seek another term

At the time, there was some partisan fringe claims that the election was fraught, which were untrue but perhaps more plausible at that time than it is today.

‘There is a real contrast in how these allegations were handled because Cleveland was actually asked by the press at one point “what do you think happened? Why do you think you lost?” And he said “Because the other side got the most votes,”’ Senik said. ‘He was not willing to entertain any of those theories.’

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It is not clear what Cleveland really thought, but what was most important to him according to his biographer was ‘not unsettling the country’ with talk of a fraught election.

What contrasts Trump and Cleveland as well is Cleveland was the end of the line for a certain type of Democrat while Trump is driving a new Republican party.

What ended up drawing Cleveland back into politics was his view that the Democrat party was moving in a more populist direction and away from Cleveland’s view of a limited government.

By being reelected, Cleveland was able to hold off the shift for about four years.

‘He’s a real contrast to Trump, in that he’s really a counter-revolutionary. He’s trying to stop this populist surge in his party whereas Trump is at the helm of his in the Republican party.’

Cleveland was also concerned about the character of the people who could be the Democratic nominee if he isn’t in 1892.

President Cleveland ran for reelection in 1892 almost entirely focused on the issue of tariffs

The task of getting nominated in 1892 was completely different from the nomination process of 2024, being that it was well before party primaries.

Cleveland’s return was largely embraced by party elders, who were making the decisions on who the nominee would be and did not want to see the party heading in a populist direction, not the rank and file.

He had a reputation for honesty and integrity, so the party was able to reconcile differences to nominate him.

Had there been a primary process as it stands today with voters weighing in, Senik does not believe Cleveland would have been the nominee.

When Cleveland lost in 1888, it arguably happened because he got ahead of the electorate.

Specific to the time in history of this election, his reelection was built around the single issue of reducing tariffs, which divided his party.

When he ran again in 1892 after Republican President Benjamin Harrison was in office and Republican controlled Congress, tariffs had gone up and people were feeling the economic sting, so his stance benefited him in a way it had not in the previous election.

Several other presidents besides Cleveland including Grant, Roosevelt and Hoover have run again after leaving office, but none of them were successful

Where Trump’s attempt to mount a reelection bid and Cleveland’s may have more in common is voters are perhaps fatigued in 2024 by a rematch between Trump and Biden in the same way they were back in 1892 when the candidates were Cleveland and Harrison a second time.

‘Everybody was bored by it,’ Senik said of 1892. ‘They just thought this is so uninteresting to be rerunning the same two guys again.’

In the end it was a sleepy election: Cleveland was sick for a lot of it, suffering from gout. Harrison’s wife was dying. 

Overall, they really did not campaign much and the country largely tuned it out.

Besides Cleveland, several former presidents have attempted to return to the White House after leaving office including Presidents Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore and Teddy Roosevelt. None of them won. 

If he wins in November, Trump will be only the second president to serve nonconsecutive terms.