Should Donald Trump win back the White House on Nov. 5, he wouldn’t be the first former president to be elevated to a non-consecutive second term.
That honor belongs to New Jersey’s own Grover Cleveland, the United States’ 22nd and 24th president.
Cleveland’s first presidential run and the Maria Halpin scandal
Trump and Cleveland share some commonalities apart from running for the White House in three consecutive cycles.
Both men have been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct, up to and including rape.
During the 1884 presidential campaign, Cleveland — then the Democratic governor of New York — was accused by a Buffalo garment industry supervisor named Maria Halpin of fathering her child a decade prior — and using his political influence to have Halpin placed in a psychiatric ward while the child was adopted by another family.
“In an 1874 affidavit,” the Chicago Tribune wrote at the time, according to Smithsonian Magazine, “Halpin strongly implied that Cleveland’s entry into her room and the incident that transpired there was not consensual—he was forceful and violent, she alleged, and later promised to ruin her if she went to the authorities.”
Cleveland’s campaign acknowledged that he and Halpin had been “illicitly acquainted,” but the governor left the paternity of Halpin’s child — given the name Oscar Folsom Cleveland — an open question, arguing that any of the prominent Buffalo businessmen in his circle (all of whom were married) could have sired the boy.
Halpin argued: “There is not and never was a doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt of Grover Cleveland or his friends to couple the name of Oscar Folsom or any one else with that of the boy, for that purpose, is simply infamous and false.”
However, Cleveland’s downplaying of the encounter as an unfortunate youthful liaison — despite him being in his mid-30s at the time — won the day, and he defeated Republican Sen. James Blaine of Maine in the November election, becoming the first Democrat to win the White House since the Civil War.
Cleveland’s first term and defeat
Cleveland was tightfisted on matters of economic policy, opposing government handouts and special favors — even vetoing a bill that would have given drought-stricken Texas farmers $10,000 in federal funds (around $325,000 in today’s money) to purchase seed grain.
But it was his veto of expanding pensions for Civil War veterans and his distaste for workers’ rights that most contributed to his failed bid for re-election.
Cleveland lost the 1888 presidential race to Republican former Sen. Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, becoming the only incumbent to date to win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College.
Grover Cleveland’s re-election and second term
Cleveland got his revenge four years later, defeating Harrison in the first matchup of major party nominees who had served as president.
The 24th president’s term was beset by the economic Panic of 1893 and related labor unrest. Though Cleveland could have sought a third term in 1896, he opted not to contest the Democratic nomination.
Following the election that year of Republican William McKinley of Ohio, no Democrat won the presidency until Woodrow Wilson’s victory in 1912.
Presidents who have attempted to win a non-consecutive term but failed
Should Trump lose his comeback campaign, he would have more company. Former Presidents Martin Van Buren (1848), Millard Fillmore (1856), Ulysses S. Grant (1880) and Teddy Roosevelt (1912) all lost their attempts at returning to the presidency after a gap of at least four years.
While Grant and Roosevelt were attempting to win third terms in the Oval Office, Trump will have no such luck should he emerge triumphant on Tuesday.
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1951, holds that no one can be elected president more than twice.
