Historical re-election odds were against another Romney bid
On Friday, aides said former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will forgo a 2016 presidential bid for personal reasons. But in historical terms, a consecutive run at the White House would have been problematic based on the past trends involving losing presidential candidates.
Romney lost to President Obama in November 2012, with Obama getting 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206.
The Constitution doesn’t allow a President to serve more than two terms, or 10 years, in office, but there’s no prohibition on how often someone can run for the presidency.
Since 1896, six losing presidential candidates who were major party nominees ran a second (and in one case a third time) as their party nominees, and only one candidate, Richard Nixon, was successful.
Overall, 12 major party nominees who lost presidential races gained another nomination, and five were successful in getting in the White House.
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Grover Cleveland did come back from a presidential campaign loss to win four years later. Cleveland’s win was in 1892; he was the last President to accomplish that feat in four years.
Nixon won the 1968 presidential race, after losing eight years earlier to John F. Kennedy. In fact, Nixon was the last defeated presidential candidate to make another major effort to win a presidential race as his party’s nominee.
Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Al Gore, and John McCain didn’t attempt to run for President again after their losing campaigns.
Here are examples of presidential candidates who ran unsuccessful back-to-back campaigns as party nominees:
Charles Pinkney ran twice against Thomas Jefferson and lost handily both times. The legendary Henry Clay lost in races against Andrew Jackson and James Polk. Martin Van Buren lost two attempts at regaining the presidency after winning the 1836 election.
William Jennings Bryan lost consecutive campaigns against William McKinley and a third race against William Howard Taft.
In more recent years, Thomas Dewey lost consecutive campaigns against Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, while Adlai Stevenson lost twice to Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.
The 1956 contest between Stevenson and Eisenhower was the last time a failed nominee ran in back-to-back races, and lost.
And even if a candidate won a presidential election, American history has plenty of examples of Presidents who lost re-election bids. In fact, nine Presidents lost re-election bids since 1800, when John Adams lost a bitter contest against Jefferson.
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