Every indicator suggests that the 2024 election will see a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
For most Americans, this will represent the first Presidential rematch of their lives.
What does history offer for evaluating Biden-Trump II?
Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump: Historical Context
Presidential rematches are pretty unusual in American electoral history, especially in the post-bellum era.
Usually, the defeated candidate is so politically damaged that they do not seriously consider another Presidential run.
The victor is by definition the incumbent, and usually in a stronger position the second time around.
Someone interested in a rematch has to contend with the fact that their own brand has been tarnished and that their opponent will likely be in an advantageous position. Rematches and post-Presidential political careers were more common in the early Republic, but seem to have almost entirely disappeared.
Returns Are Rare
Indeed, any return to politics on the part of a defeated Presidential candidate has become rare.
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) is one of the very few defeated contenders who has sought any kind of new electoral office (senators such as John McCain, George McGovern, and Barry Goldwater defended their seats in incumbency well after their failed Presidential runs).
Bob Dole and Mike Dukakis both effectively retired from the political arena after their defeats. The 2000 and 2016 elections represent best case “rematch” scenarios, as in both years the Democratic candidate won the popular vote but lost the EC, suggesting a manageable rematch.
And yet neither Gore nor Clinton made any serious effort to win their party’s nomination in the ensuing cycle. Gore is five years younger than Joe Biden but has not even touched the Democratic primary waters in the past five cycles.
Clinton carries so much baggage that only Republican political consultants pine for her return to the arena.
Enter Donald Trump: What Does History Say?
But Donald Trump, of course, is different. What chances for success?
The most notable successful rematch in American history came in the 1892 election, where former President Grover Cleveland avenged his 1888 defeat to Benjamin Harrison. In 1888 the incumbent Cleveland lost the Electoral College 233-168 despite winning the popular vote 48.6%-47.8%. Four years later, Cleveland defeated Harrison 277-145 in the EC and 46%-43% in the popular vote.
A poor economy made Harrison particularly vulnerable, and he faced challenges even to win the Republican nomination. Cleveland held a dominant position in the Democratic Party of the time, and won nomination without great difficulty despite his earlier defeat.
More recently, in 1952 General Dwight D. Eisenhower handed Illinois Senator Adlai Stevenson a serious thrashing, winning 55% of the popular vote and 442 electoral votes. Perhaps despairing of any serious effort to defeat the popular incumbent, in 1956 the Democrats again nominated Stevenson, who lost the second time by an even larger margin. Ironically, Adlai Stevenson’s grandfather had served as Grover Cleveland’s Vice President for his second term.
2024
Will 2024 be more of an Eisenhower year or a Cleveland year?
Joe Biden is no Ike, but like Adlai Stevenson Donald Trump has failed to command a popular majority in two successive presidential runs.
Eighteen months out it’s still too early to tell how the election might shape up, with the economy and Joe Biden’s key foreign policy project (the defense of Ukraine) still in serious question. Notwithstanding the fundamentals, incumbent Presidents usually have an electoral advantage and Donald Trump has a major hill to climb in order to win back the states he lost in 2020.
The cult of personality that the GOP has allowed Donald Trump to build around himself may not be entirely unique in American political history, but it has laid the foundations for a kind of electoral rematch that we have not seen in a very long time. Indeed, at this point it’s difficult to say what a post-Trump GOP will look like. There certainly are plenty of 2024 contenders (some of whom are probably aiming for the VP slot or laying the foundations for a 2028 run) but it’s not obvious that Trump is interested in relinquishing his hold on the party. Even if he loses to Biden in 2024 (and manages to stay out of prison) he could conceivably run in 2028 (as an eighty-two year old) or anoint a successor.
Rematches are rare, but Donald Trump is very nearly unique in the history of the Republic, so it’s awfully difficult to predict where we’ll find ourselves as long as Trump maintains control of the GOP.
A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
