Trump joins Grover Cleveland with rarest presidential feat
Donald Trump this week did what only one other American has done — winning the presidency after earlier losing it from the White House — but experts say the similarities between the men are strikingly few despite their ability to make historic comebacks.
Grover Cleveland entered the White House for his first term in 1885, lost his first reelection bid and came back four years later to win again.
The rarely talked about 22nd and 24th president of the United States could see his stock rise as academics look at why this phenomenon was not replicated for more than 125 years.
“Unfortunately, Grover doesn't get a whole lot of love in the curriculum. Now, will that change? I think so,” said Anton Schulzki, interim executive director of the National Council for Social Studies and previously a teacher for more than 40 years.
While the historic accomplishments will forever link the two commanders in chief, the way these moments took place and the men themselves are incredibly different.
“I don’t see any useful or significant parallels between Cleveland and Trump, actually. They were completely different men, in personality and policy,” said David Greenberg, professor of history at Rutgers University. “The parallels lie, rather, in the two eras. In both the late 19th century and the early 21st century, politics became intensely partisan.”
Cleveland, the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War, won the popular vote in all three of his elections, but lost the Electoral College in 1888. Trump, meanwhile, lost the popular vote in 2016, lost both the popular vote and the electoral one in 2020 and finally on Tuesday accomplished winning both.
“Both parties commanded very strong, visceral loyalties. In addition, then, as now, the electorate was very closely split. So you had a whole series of elections that were extremely competitive, in both senses of the word. They were competitive in that they were close. Margins of victory were narrow,” Greenburg said. “And elections in both of these eras were competitive in that they were passionately fought, with intense emotion and rhetoric on both sides.”
Cleveland was born in New Jersey and had a lifetime career in politics.
He served as a sheriff and mayor of Buffalo before rising to greater prominence as governor in New York, a position he held for two years before running for president and winning in 1884.
Once in office, he attempted to lower both government spending and protective tariffs. Some partly blame Cleveland's tariff policy for his loss in the second election due to voters coming out who were afraid lower tariffs threatened their jobs.
His second term was plagued by a financial crisis early on, and he famously sent federal troops to end the Pullman railroad strike.
One unfortunate similarity between the two presidents is prominent allegations of sexual impropriety. Trump was found liable for sexual battery last year; he has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women and in May was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments over alleged affairs.
In 1874, a woman named Maria Halpin accused Cleveland of raping and impregnating her.
"He never denied paternity and arranged for Maria to be institutionalized against her will so that he could take custody of the child, whom he named Oscar Folsom Cleveland," the White House Historical Association says on its website.
Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, said, “It's unclear whether he actually was the father of that child, but he said he supported the child."
"He took responsibility for it. He told his advisors, his allies, you know, tell the truth," Kazin said.
The single-term presidencies of the men who interrupted Cleveland and Trump — Benjamin Harrison and Joe Biden — are also not without some common denominators, according to Jordan Cash, an associate professor at Michigan State University.
“Harrison, in his one term, signed a lot of legislation that expanded the government's budget. There was a lot of government spending that really increased economic activity, or increased government involvement in economic activity, and did have some negative ramifications for the economy,” Cash said.
“So, I think you could compare, not necessarily the policies of Biden and Harrison, but certainly the way that the policies impacted the economy in a way that people found to be negative. And so, the reaction to it is, well, let's go back to the guy who things seem to be going pretty well under,” he added.
Biden, who turns 82 this month, is almost certainly not going to run again in 2028 after dropping out of this year's race in July. But the example set by Cleveland and now Trump could offer hope to others who find themselves evicted from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
“I suppose it's possible that in the future, a president who's defeated may also" seek a comeback, Cash said. "We may see more attempts at nonconsecutive terms in the future."