Grover Cleveland: The only other President to serve non-consecutive terms
In January 2025 Donald Trump became only the second US President to win non-consecutive terms. The first? Grover Cleveland.
Image: Official portrait of Grover Cleveland (c. 1891) | Public Domain
On 20th January 2025, Donald Trump became only the second man to enter the White House to serve non-consecutive terms.
A somewhat unlikely two-time winner of Time magazine’s Person of the Year award, Trump followed in the footsteps of Grover Cleveland, the only other President to sandwich two election wins with a defeat.
Cleveland served as the 22nd President of the USA between 1885 to 1889 and the 24th commander-in-chief from 1893 to 1897. Join us at Sky HISTORY as we take a look at the story of how he achieved such an unusual feat.
A turbulent first campaign followed by success
After a long and accomplished career as a practitioner of law in Buffalo, New York, Grover Cleveland rose quickly through the political ranks. He was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881, governor of New York in 1882 and selected as the Democratic candidate for the upcoming presidential campaign in 1884.
The campaign was marred by allegations of sexual misconduct, with Cleveland admitting to fathering an illegitimate child with a woman named Maria Halpin 10 years prior. Halpin claimed the incident was non-consensual, in much the same way that Trump would later face similar accusations from multiple women in the run-up to his showdown with Hilary Clinton.
Like Trump, Cleveland overcame this controversy to win the election, in large part thanks to the political scandals that dogged his Republican adversary, James Blaine. Though a bachelor when he entered the White House, Cleveland would break new presidential ground by becoming the only man to marry while in office.
A controversial first term and second election defeat
One point on which Cleveland deviates significantly from Trump is that of his moral character. Trump’s status as the only convicted felon to be elected to the presidency marks him out as perhaps the most controversial president since Richard Nixon.
On the other hand, Cleveland was renowned for his commitment to his principles through the entirety of both terms in power. While this did earn him respect, it also made powerful enemies of many.
For example, during his first term he blocked pensions for Civil War veterans and subsidies for drought-stricken farmers, while he also made the reduction in high tariffs that had been imposed by the Republicans a key component of his re-election campaign.
This was to be a major architect of his downfall, since his opposition to tariffs splintered his own party and unified the Republicans against him. Despite winning the popular vote by a larger margin than his previous campaign, he lost the all-important Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison, who was the grandson of 9th president William Henry Harrison.
Resurgence followed by difficult second term
Ironically, the very same point that would lose Cleveland his second presidential campaign would win him his third. A flagging economy was exacerbated by the elevated tariffs imposed during the Harrison time in office, with voters feeling the squeeze.
By doubling down on the issue and running his campaign with a promise to reduce the tariffs, Cleveland was able to comfortably defeat Harrison by 277 Electoral College votes to just 145. Another irony is that the entrenched economic crisis that he immediately faced on re-entering the White House would prevent him from carrying that promise to fruition.
Meanwhile, Cleveland’s heavy-handed use of federal military troops to break up the Pullman Strikes (which involved railroad workers and brought large parts of the locomotive industry to a standstill) made him unpopular both inside and outside his own party.
Retirement and legacy
By 1896, Cleveland commanded little support from the Democrats and there was no question of him standing again for the next election. He retired to spend the rest of his days in Princeton, New Jersey, before passing away in 1908 at the age of 71.
While Cleveland could have theoretically run for a third term should he (and his party) have so desired, the same possibility should not be available to Trump. That’s because the Constitution was amended in 1951 to limit a president to a maximum of two terms.
Nonetheless, Trump’s reluctance to relinquish power in 2021 and his role in the US Capitol Building riots of January of that year, alongside his incendiary rhetoric about terminating the Constitution in the run-up to the 2024 election, means that he may well try to overturn that particular piece of legislation.
Thankfully, the system of checks and balances in place in the USA should make such an endeavour extremely difficult, if not impossible. One thing’s for sure – Grover Cleveland wouldn’t have stood for it.
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