How Donald Trumps Unusual Presidential Comeback Could Go

With his November announcement that he would seek the 2024 Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump joined a rarified subsection of a rarified group: a former president who sought a return to the White House.

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With this, former President Gerald Ford announced in March 1980 that he would not make a late entrance into the Republican presidential nomination race after long teasing a potential bid. For decades, this marked the nearest any former president had come to seeking a return to the White House in the modern political era until former President Donald Trump announced his presidential bid in November.

Trumps comeback campaign is unprecedented since the contemporary nomination system took shape in the 1970s. Yet in the broader history of presidential elections, his comeback effort is unusual but not unheard of. Former presidents like Martin Van Buren, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt each mounted serious post-presidency campaigns to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue between 1844 and 1912. In fact, five former presidents have won at least some delegates at major-party national conventions, as the table below shows.

Former presidents who won delegate support at a major partys national convention

Largest delegate percentage reflects the largest number of delegate votes won by the former president on a ballot for the presidential nomination, out of the total number of delegate votes at the convention.

*Van Buren earned a majority of the delegate vote on the first ballot at the 1844 Democratic National Convention, but the party required a candidate win two-thirds of the vote to win the nomination at conventions from 1832 to 1932.

The share of delegates that Roosevelt won does not include the approximately three-fourths of Roosevelt-supporting delegates who voted present, not voting on the decisive first ballot, in protest of anti-Roosevelt developments at the 1912 Republican National Convention.

Sources: Brookings Institution, Congressional Quarterly

The American political system has changed enough, at a structural level, that Trump cant expect to retread the paths that any of these men took. And why would he want to? Only one of them successfully made it back to the White House. Still, the broad circumstances surrounding a trio of presidential comeback attempts offer three paths for Trumps 2024 campaign. Like Grant in 1880, Trump could attract ample support for his partys nomination but ultimately fall short after a majority of Republicans coalesce around an opponent. Alternatively, after seeking his partys nomination, Trump could abandon the GOP and launch a third-party bid, as Roosevelt did in 1912. Or Trump could win his partys nomination, as Cleveland did in 1892 and maybe even reclaim the White House.

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If Trump could choose to be in the same shoes as anyone come January 2025, itd be those of Grover Cleveland, the only person ever elected to two nonconsecutive terms as president. Cleveland won the presidency in 1884, lost reelection in 1888, then won back the White House in 1892. Its very hard to say how likely Trump is to win the GOP nomination at this early vantage point, but compared with Cleveland, Trump could have much greater trouble coalescing support from across different factions of his party.

Clevelands comeback developed thanks to a vindication of his views on economic policies. Cleveland, a conservative Democrat, narrowly lost reelection to Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888 partly because of his support for lower tariff rates, which Republicans criticized. Two years later, though, Democrats won massive majorities in the House after slamming the excesses of the Billion Dollar Congress and connecting rising prices to higher tariffs. Buoyed by the role his core issues played in the 1890 midterm campaign, Cleveland began a comeback bid. His main rival for the Democratic nomination would be Sen. David Hill, a fellow New Yorker who embraced a more pro-silver, inflationary approach to monetary policy a key divide within the party whereas Cleveland opposed weakening gold as the prime guarantor of the dollars value.

But Clevelands profile as a reformer in an era of graft and machine politics also contrasted sharply with Hill, whose reputation as a machine politician loomed as a potential weakness with general-election voters. By the time of the June national convention, Cleveland had become the front-runner, and on the conventions first ballot, he won enough to surpass the two-thirds share necessary to win the nomination. Cleveland went on to defeat Harrison in a rematch of the previous general election, albeit with just 46 percent of the national popular vote, as Harrison led a divided GOP hed struggled to win renomination and third-party efforts by the Populist and Prohibition parties combined to win 11 percent, somewhat scrambling the electoral map.

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Clevelands successful comeback offers a precedent and hope for Trumps 2024 campaign. One broad similarity between the two is that Trump, like Cleveland, has remained his partys most high-profile leader after losing a close presidential election. Trumps reshaping of the GOP may not win him the 2024 Republican nomination but its certainly not to the detriment of his candidacy. Under and since Trumps presidency, the Republican Partys congressional membership has changed substantially, and its members are more aligned with Trumps style of politics. Similarly, more than half of the Republican National Committees membership has changed since Trump won the GOP nod in 2016, thanks to an exodus of old-school establishment Republicans. Among the broader electorate, a tad less than 40 percent of Republicans have told The Economist/YouGov in most recent surveys that they identify as a MAGA Republican, compared with a little more than 45 percent who didnt. While larger, that latter group may still embrace some of Trumps anti-establishment and combative approach that other Republicans have used to great effect.

However, Trump and Cleveland do differ in some critical respects. For one thing, Clevelands standing ahead of the 1892 election improved after his partys showing in the 1890 midterms; by contrast, Trumps image has taken a hit in the wake of the GOPs underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms highlighted by the defeat of many Trump-endorsed candidates in key Senate races. Additionally, concerns about Hills electability in the general election also helped Cleveland build widespread support even among pro-silver southern and western Democrats but Trump might suffer because of worries about his general-election chances. Recent polls suggest another Republican, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, might be a stronger general-election contender against President Biden; although the value of such polls this far from November 2024 is highly suspect, donors and party activists are certainly looking at them.

At the same time, Trump has something going for him that Cleveland didnt: the primary process. Trump doesnt necessarily need to even win electoral majorities in presidential primaries to win a majority of his partys delegates. In 2016, the GOPs preference for primaries and caucuses that were winner-take-all or at least winner-take-most helped Trump win the Republican nomination even though he won only pluralities of the vote in most contests against a crowded field of opponents. We might be headed for a sequel if a sizable number of candidates decide to run in the 2024 Republican contest.

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It is entirely possible, on the other hand, that a majority or larger plurality of Republicans will coalesce around one of Trumps opponents, an outcome that would broadly parallel Ulysses Grants failed bid for the GOP nomination in 1880. Given the two politicians factional support and critics concerns about electability, it is the Grant comparison that arguably looms largest for Trump among those were examining here.

The preeminent hero of the Civil War, Grant left the White House in 1877 after serving two terms. But his image had suffered from his administrations myriad corruption scandals as well as his association with the turbulent Reconstruction era and a deep economic depression. Grants successor, Republican Rutherford Hayes, didnt seek reelection, and favorable press coverage of Grants two-year world tour resuscitated his profile as the 1880 election neared. Grant had support from a faction of the GOP led by a group of political bosses, but he also faced substantial opposition within a party that had lost its once-dominant position following the Civil War. Many Republicans worried that he would struggle to unify the GOP, given his administrations scandals and the fractures that had developed within the party during his presidency.

Like Grant, Trump remains relatively popular among those in his party: His favorability among Republicans sits in the low 70s in Civiqss tracking poll, while only around 15 percent have an unfavorable view of him. While hes lost ground in recent national primary polls, Trump still leads DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence Trumps most-polled potential opponents with a plurality across most surveys. And again like Grant, Trump also has received some early backing from Republican officials in Congress and around the country, a departure from Trumps first run back in 2016.

But one potentially critical difference is that Trump could benefit from his partys delegate rules just as he did winning pluralities in the 2016 primaries whereas Grant ended up losing in part because a pivotal rules decision went against him. At the 1880 Republican National Convention, the anti-Grant faction which was larger than the pro-Grant group defeated implementation of the unit rule, which wouldve required delegates to vote for the candidate preferred by most of their states delegation. Grants backers had supported the proposal, which wouldve been analogous to a winner-take-all primary in some delegate-rich states where Grant had the most support, putting him close to the majority necessary for the nomination.

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And unlike in modern times, the classic convention setting also gave Grants opponents a chance to find an alternative choice even one who wasnt actively seeking the presidency. After 35 ballots, as no candidate managed to overtake Grant, some delegates began turning to Ohio Rep. James Garfield, who had earlier made a strong impression when he gave a nominating speech for another candidate. Sensing things were turning toward Garfield and wanting to avoid Grants nomination at all costs, Grants main opponents called for their delegates to back Garfield on the 36th ballot. As the vote came down, Grant again captured more than 300 votes, but Garfield won 399, a majority that earned him the partys nomination and blocked Grants comeback.

However, as with Grant, many current Republican leaders, donors and voters would like to turn the page on the Trump era in the face of the former presidents struggles in the 2022 midterms, as well as legal proceedings concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his business interests, his personal life and his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Similarly, a majority of Republicans could rally around a Trump alternative, such as DeSantis, whose strengthening poll numbers, support from party leaders and plaudits from conservative media could make him the most likely preference for Trump opponents.

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Last and definitely least likely, Trump could leave the Republican primary race and run as a third-party candidate in 2024. Such a move would undoubtedly bring to mind comparisons with another former president who opted to run outside the two-party system after losing his partys nomination: Teddy Roosevelt, whose unsuccessful run in 1912 remains the strongest performance by a third-party presidential candidate in U.S. history.

Roosevelt became president following the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, and then won four more years in 1904. But having promised not to run again, Roosevelt positioned his handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, to win the Republican nomination and the presidency in 1908. Out of office, however, Roosevelt became frustrated with Tafts more conservative governing approach, and the Republican Partys divisions and losses in the 1910 midterms created space for a Taft opponent one Roosevelt filled when he decided to challenge Taft in the 1912 Republican nomination race.

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The ensuing campaign broke new ground as some states (13 in all) would select most of their convention delegates via a presidential primary. Roosevelt had previously expressed skepticism toward primaries, but he embraced the popular movement to create direct primaries and encouraged many states to implement them as it became apparent they were the only way he could gain more delegates than Taft, whose allies controlled the party machinery in states where delegates would be picked by local and state conventions. In an unprecedented, popular campaign for president, Roosevelt ended up dominating at the ballot box: He won the popular vote in nine of the 12 primaries that had results, garnering 52 percent to Tafts 34 percent overall. However, heading into the 1912 GOP convention, Roosevelts primary success couldnt win the nomination on its own: Only about 2 in 5 Republican delegates came from the primary states (in 2016, that figure was about 4 in 5). Tafts allies also controlled the convention committees, including the credentials committee, which backed the Taft-supporting delegates on most of the numerous credentials challenges that had resulted from the contentious campaign. Taft narrowly won the nomination on the first ballot, so Roosevelts campaign decided to implement the third-party option.

Third-party bids usually struggle, but Roosevelts Progressive Party often called the Bull Moose Party had both serious financial support and proof of popular support demonstrated by his showing in the GOP primaries. In November, Roosevelt went on to win 27 percent of the popular vote to Tafts 23 percent. But because Roosevelt and Taft largely split the Republican vote, Democrat Woodrow Wilson easily won the presidency with just 42 percent.

Third-party candidates for president who won at least 5 percent of the national popular vote, 1832 to present

Source: Dave Leips Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

As with Cleveland and Grant, the political circumstances surrounding Trump and Roosevelt differ on many fronts. For one thing, in the 2024 campaign, Trump wont face an incumbent from his own party like Roosevelt did. Trump will also have far more access than Roosevelt to winning support through primaries, as those contests determined only a minority of delegates at the 1912 GOP convention. But if Trump were to actually pursue a third-party bid, hed likely have to make that choice much earlier in 2024 than Roosevelt had to in 1912, thanks to more rigorous and time-sensitive requirements for qualifying for the general-election ballot across the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

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But while the idea of a Trump third-party bid is unlikely, we cant completely laugh it off. After all, he has repeatedly raised the prospect himself, most recently in late December when he shared on his social media platform an article from a pro-Trump website advocating such a move. This is in keeping with a long-running pattern: Following the 2020 election, Trump talked of a new Patriot Party or MAGA Party, and during the 2016 cycle, Trump complained of being treated unfairly by the GOP hierarchy and suggested he might attempt an independent bid. Although this has perhaps been a bargaining tactic a split GOP vote would all but guarantee victory for Democrats its also true that a Trump third-party bid could win a significant number of votes. More plainly, Trump has often claimed that political opponents are conspiring against him. Roosevelt may have had more cause for such feelings in the face of Tafts control of the convention in 1912, but Roosevelt famously summed up his new partys platform as thou shalt not steal.

Todays presidential primary is night and day from the smoke-filled rooms and convention politics that decided the nominations 100-plus years ago. However, one thing remains true: The rules of the nomination, and how campaigns respond to them, matter. Cleveland won because he managed to unify the party sufficiently including support from those who disagreed with him on silver to win the two-thirds majority required by the Democrats. Grant failed in large part because his campaign couldnt outplay the anti-Grant faction to enact the unit rule. And while Roosevelt won smashing victories in the primaries, that wasnt the main mode of delegate selection yet, and his campaigns inability to make sufficient inroads in caucus-convention states cost him the nomination. For Trump in 2024, the partys delegate rules necessitate winning (at least) pluralities in primaries in the early and middle part of the nomination calendar to build up a delegate lead and to push out rivals. He did it once before it remains to be seen whether the GOPs anti-Trump forces can outmaneuver him this time around.

Story editing by Maya Sweedler. Copy editing by Andrew Mangan. Photo research by Emily Scherer.

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How Donald Trumps Unusual Presidential Comeback Could Go