🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Former President Donald Trump may be poised to make history if he can win the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination after he announced his intention to launch a third White House campaign.
No defeated president has run for president again since the late 19th century and only one person has served two non-consecutive terms in the White House but Trump is aiming to replicate that success.
Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, was first elected president in 1884 but he was defeated in his re-election bid in 1888 by Republican Benjamin Harrison, despite winning the popular vote on both occasions.
Four years later, Cleveland was the Democratic presidential nominee again and went on to win the 1892 election against Harrison. Cleveland is considered both the 22nd and 24th U.S. president.
Though President Theodore Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1912, he had not been defeated in a previous election and did not win a major party's nomination, making Cleveland a unique example in relatively recent history.
An Honest Person
David Sim is a a historian of the United States at University College London in the U.K. He told Newsweek that Cleveland's personality was "diametrically opposite" to Trump's.
Cleveland had a relatively poor but deeply religious background, Sim explained.
"His defining feature in public life is that he's an honest person," Sim said. "And this is what makes him attractive to the Democratic Party when they're looking for a nominee."
"It's what makes him a successful presidential candidate in 1884. He has a reputation for a kind of extreme personal probity, high standards of personal behavior—he builds his national reputation on opposition to graft and corruption," he said.
Cleveland also had significantly more political experience than Trump when he won the Democratic nomination in 1884. He served as governor of New York from 1883 to 1885 and had previously held a variety of public offices, including mayor of Buffalo, New York.
Sim described Cleveland as being "old-fashioned" and taking a "hardline" on government spending.
"Congress passes a bill to alleviate suffering following the drought in Texas. And he issues this message in which he says it's the job of the people to support the government, not the job of the government to support the people," he said.
He was referring to the 1887 Texas Seed Bill, which would have sent $10,000 to farmers in Texas for seed grain if Cleveland had signed it.
Not a Failure
Cleveland was defeated for re-election in 1888 but despite this loss, Sim told Newsweek the Democrat was not regarded as a failure. That helped him to secure his party's nomination again in 1892.
"I think in 1892, he's a relatively popular choice," Sim said, describing Cleveland's leading Democratic opponent at the time, David B. Hill, as being "like a classic corrupt political boss" whom Cleveland overcame.
"And Cleveland then has relatively free run for the nomination," Sim said.
Former President Trump has led in a slew of polls about who Republicans want to be their 2024 presidential candidate. His nearest rival is widely considered to be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and it remains to be seen if Trump will also enjoy a "free run" at the nomination.
Election Fraud
Former President Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from through voter fraud an other irregularities—a claim echoed by many of the midterm candidates he endorsed.
Sim explained to Newsweek that the 1888 election did suffer from fraud and how Cleveland responded.
"It's the late 19th century. Ballot boxes go missing," Sim said. "You know, people sometimes—they vote more than once. Political corruption exists in every era. Of course it does. And he's actually asked about it in 1888, and he's asked, does he think that fraud is responsible for his loss?"
"And he says…no, the other guy just got more votes," Sim said. "He's very frank about it."
While Cleveland won the popular vote that year, Harrison won more of the all important Electoral College votes. Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 but lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020.
Seriousness of Purpose
A potential second term for Trump has raised questions about what he might do if he returns to the Oval Office. Senator Lindsey Graham praised Trump's announcement on Tuesday, tweeting that if he "continues this tone and delivers this message on a consistent basis, he will be hard to beat."
Sim told Newsweek that Cleveland was "interested in governing in a way that Donald Trump was not."
"He has the seriousness of purpose about the office of the presidency, about functions of the American state, that Trump just did not have," he said.
Nonetheless, Sim suggested that Trump might like the contrast with Cleveland.
"Cleveland is kind of pro-business, pro-globalist, captured by the vested interests, ignoring the common man. They have strikes, agrarian discontent during Cleveland's presidency," he said.
Sim suggested that discontented Americans "are the people that Trump claims to represent. So he maybe wouldn't be unflattered by that distinction."
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more