A brief history of former presidents running for reelection: 3 losses, 1 win and 1 still TBD

Theodore Roosevelt speaks during the Progressive campaign of 1912. AP Photo

This year’s presidential election has a former president, Donald Trump, running for a nonconsecutive term. It’s the fifth time in U.S. history that’s happened.

Historically, a former president running for a nonconsecutive term has prompted voters to change their party allegiances.

In 1848, Martin Van Buren, a former Democratic president, ran as a candidate for the newly formed Free Soil Party and attracted many Northern Democrats who had grown disillusioned with their party’s pro-slavery stance. The Free Soil Party outperformed Democrats in three Northern states and enabled the other major party, the Whigs, to win the presidency.

And in 1856, former Whig President Millard Fillmore headed the newly formed American Party, otherwise known as the Know-Nothing party. When faced with a choice between two candidates, Fillmore and Democrat James Buchanan, who both seemed deeply complicit with slavery’s expansion, many Northerners voted for the new antislavery Republican Party.

Fillmore’s candidacy in 1856 made a Republican sweep of the North virtually impossible, ensuring victory for Buchanan, who only won 45% of the popular vote.

Theodore Roosevelt’s run in 1912 also saw dramatic changes in voter behavior. With the former president on the ballot, millions of voters cast ballots for the other major party or a brand new party.

By this time, Roosevelt had become one of the most famous men in the world. Reformers praised his ability to attract attention and build support for progressive causes.

These characteristics repulsed conservative Republicans and traditional Democrats who feared Roosevelt’s return to power.

After failing to secure the Republican nomination, Roosevelt headed the newly formed Progressive Party, winning six states and 88 electoral votes, the strongest showing for a third party candidate ever.

However, the split in the Republican ranks enabled Democrats to win by an electoral landslide.

One former president ran for a nonconsecutive second term and won: Grover Cleveland, whose two terms ran from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897.

The rise of progressivism

When Roosevelt ran in 1912, he saw a society convulsed by rapid change.

Between 1870 and 1900, the population of the United States rose from roughly 38 million to more than 76 million.

During this time, business transformed from small-scale manufacturing and local trade to huge corporations and factory-based manufacturing.

From 1900 to 1915, another 15 million immigrants settled in American cities.

A political reform movement known as progressivism emerged across political parties. It sought to address problems with immigration, urbanization, political corruption, industrialization and the concentration of corporate power.

Roosevelt’s political career tapped into progressivism’s growing momentum. First elected vice president as a Republican in 1900, he assumed the presidency in September 1901 after the assassination of President William McKinley.

Campaigning on his progressive “Square Deal” — focused on consumer protections, control of large corporations and conservation of natural resources — in 1904, the popular incumbent won reelection in the largest electoral landslide the country had seen.

But in 1908, Roosevelt declined to run for a third term. Instead, he advocated successfully for William Howard Taft, his secretary of war.

However, as Taft’s presidency took shape, Roosevelt grew dissatisfied with him. What most frustrated Roosevelt was Taft’s refusal to use executive power to advance progressive goals.

Seeing an urgent need for forceful presidential leadership, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

A political cartoon from 1912 illustrating Theodore Roosevelt’s dissatisfaction with how President William Howard Taft carried out his policies.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

At the Republican National Convention, however, party leaders rejected Roosevelt and confirmed Taft’s nomination. Roosevelt’s supporters stormed out, complaining that leaders had manipulated rules and procedures to block the former president.

Despite his loss of the nomination, Roosevelt assured his supporters that he felt as “strong as a Bull Moose” and expressed interest in “bolting” from the Republican Party.

Roosevelt’s threat to leave his party was echoed more than 100 years later by another former president running for a nonconsecutive term. In late 2023, Trump refused to participate in the Republican presidential primary debates and refused to rule out the possibility of running as an independent.

In doing so, Trump’s candidacy hampered efforts to seek an alternative candidate. It also disregarded opportunities to win over skeptical Republicans.

The rise of the Bull Moose Party

In a matter of weeks after Roosevelt failed to get the Republican nomination, the Progressive Party, popularly known as the Bull Moose Party, held its national convention and nominated Roosevelt as its first presidential candidate.

His presidential campaign did not lack for energy or spectacle. In October 1912, the former president delivered a one-hour speech immediately after being shot in an assassination attempt.

He told his supporters, “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Theodore Roosevelt arrives at a hospital after New York saloon keeper John F. Schrank attempted to assassinate him in Milwaukee in 1912.
Harlingue/Roger Viollet via Getty Images

Like the recent assassination attempts on Trump, this attack drew condemnation and galvanized the former president’s core supporters.

Roosevelt faced off on Election Day against the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft; Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate; and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.

Many Republicans cast their ballots for Wilson, seeing his candidacy as more viable than Roosevelt’s. Some did so out of disgust for what they saw as Roosevelt’s egotistical and radical campaign.

The split in the Republican Party created an opportunity for Democrats, who had been shut out of the presidency for decades.

The legacy of 1912

On election day, Democrat Wilson won 40 states and earned 435 electoral votes. Democrats also won the House and Senate for the first time since 1892.

However, Wilson prevailed with less than 42% of the national vote, the smallest share won by a president since Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election.

A unified Republican ticket would very likely have prevailed in 1912.

Taft blamed Roosevelt for 1 million Republicans voting for the Democratic ticket to stave off a Progressive win.

Historical parallels are never perfect. However, the 1912 election invites some comparison, as one of the world’s most famous men runs for the third time for the presidency.

The 2024 election will be close. Wary of Trump’s return to power, will disillusioned Republicans vote for Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris, choose a third-party candidate, or sit out the election?

Graeme Mack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.