Can President Trump Run for a Tgird Term

Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Strength One at Articulation Base Andrews in Maryland on Jan. 20, hours earlier President Biden'southward inauguration. Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

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Pete Marovich/Pool/Getty Images

Leaving Washington, D.C., behind, the Trumps board Air Strength One at Articulation 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 dubiousness on the prospects for convicting one-time President Donald Trump on the impeachment accuse now pending confronting him. Without a two-thirds bulk for conviction, there will non be a second vote in the Senate to bar him from future federal office.

Also this week, Politico released a Morning Consult poll that found 56% of Republicans maxim that Trump should run again in 2024. As he left Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, he said he expected to be "back in some grade."

And so volition 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 little precedent for a former president running over again, let alone winning. Just since when has the lack of precedent bothered Donald Trump?

Just 1 president who was defeated for reelection has come up dorsum to win over 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 office voluntarily in 1908, believing his mitt-picked successor, William Howard Taft, would continue his policies. When Taft did non, Roosevelt came dorsum to run against him four years later.

The Republican Party establishment of that time stood past Taft, the incumbent, so Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate. That split up the Republican vote and handed the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

And that's information technology. 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's nomination in 1844 and 1848 but was denied information technology both times. The latter time he helped found the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and ran every bit its nominee, getting 10% of the popular vote but winning no states.

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

There take also been eight presidents who have died in part. Iv 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 ain. Iv 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 four went on to win a term on his own, and each then left office voluntarily. Every bit noted above, Theodore Roosevelt afterward changed his listen, and Johnson began the 1968 primary flavour as an incumbent and a candidate only 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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A statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Foursquare near the White Business firm in June.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

One model that might exist meaningful for Trump at this phase is that of President Andrew Jackson, who ran for president iii times and arguably won each time. His beginning entrada, in 1824, was a 4-way contest in which he clearly led in both the popular vote and the Electoral College but lacked the needed bulk in the latter.

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

Information technology is not an accident that Trump, following the communication of former adviser Steve Bannon, spoke agreeably of Jackson in 2016. When he entered the White Firm, Trump hung Jackson's presidential portrait in the Oval Part overlooking the Resolute Desk.

Information technology is not hard to imagine Trump invoking the spirit of Jackson's 1828 campaign against the "decadent deal," if he runs in 2024 against "the steal" (his autograph for the outcome of the 2022 ballot, which he falsely claims was illegitimate).

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

Ii New York governors, two decades apart

For at present, Cleveland remains the just two-term president who had a time out between terms. When he first won in 1884, he was the first Autonomous president elected in 28 years, and he won by the micro-margin of merely 25,000 votes nationwide. He won because he carried New York, where he was governor at the time, calculation its balloter votes to those of Democratic-leaning states in the South – 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 own political party. Blaine was also faulted in that entrada 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 alcohol likewise as to the Roman Catholics and sometime secessionists to be constitute in the 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 domicile state was a mere thou votes, but it was plenty to deliver a majority in the Electoral College.

Afterwards Cleveland'due south first term, the election was excruciatingly close again. The salient issue of 1888 was the tariff on appurtenances from foreign countries. Republicans were for it, making an statement non different Trump'due south own America First rhetoric of 2016. Cleveland, on the other hand, said the tariff enriched big business but hurt consumers. He won the national pop vote but not the Electoral Higher, having fallen xv,000 votes short in his dwelling state of New York.

Just Cleveland scarcely broke stride. He continued to entrada over the ensuing years and easily won the Democratic nomination for the tertiary consecutive time in 1892. He and so dismissed the one-term incumbent to whom he had lost in 1888, Benjamin Harrison, who received less than a tertiary of the Electoral College vote.

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

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

David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Cleveland stepped down after his 2d term, as other reelected presidents had seen fit to practise 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. Just 41 at the time, Theodore Roosevelt had nonetheless been a police commissioner, a "Crude 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 (all the same the tape for youngest chief executive). He won a term of his own in 1904 and promptly pledged not to run once again. True to his discussion, in 1908 he handed off to his paw-picked successor, Taft.

Roosevelt did so believing Taft would keep his policies. Simply if Roosevelt had managed to notice appeal as both a populist effigy and a progressive, Taft more often stood with the party's business organisation-oriented regulars. So "T.R." decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

He did well in the nascent "primary elections" held that year, 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 Political party (known colloquially as the "Balderdash Moose" party).

That fall, Roosevelt had his revenge on Taft and the GOP. The incumbent Taft finished a poor third with just 8 votes in the Electoral College. But Roosevelt was non 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 pop vote would take 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'due south unique feat from the 1890s, and he would need to overcome the demographics and voter trends that have enabled Democrats to win the popular vote in 7 of the final eight presidential cycles.

And if he is not nominated, Trump running as an independent or as the nominee of a tertiary political party would surely carve up the Republican vote and brand a repeat of 1912 highly likely.

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

To exist articulate, Trump has not said he will run over again in 2024. On the mean solar 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 3rd party.

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

That is no idle threat. Virtually Trump supporters accept shown remarkable loyalty throughout the post-election traumas, even after the riot in the U.Southward. Capitol. The fierceness of that zipper has sobered those in the GOP who had thought Trump'southward era would wane after he was defeated. But Trump has been able to concur the popular imagination within his political party, largely by convincing many that he was not defeated.

The results of the election have been certified in all l states by governors and state officials of both parties, and at that place is no evidence for any of the conspiracy theories questioning their validity. Nonetheless, multiple polls have shown Trump supporters proceed to believe he was unjustly removed from function.

Assuming Trump is not convicted on his impeachment accuse of inciting an coup before the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, he will not confront a ban on future campaigns.

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

But that wording could well exist read to crave action against the government, non just incitement of others to activeness by incendiary speech. It could as well crave lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the costless spoken communication protections of the Start 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 Metropolis. And the greatest obstacle to his render to power would seem to be the design of history regarding the mail-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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