Today in POTUStory

On the first ballot, the Democratic National Convention renominated former President Stephen Grover Cleveland in 1892. New York Governor Cleveland won the 1884 presidential election with only a plurality of the popular vote against James G. Blaine. President Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, the 9th POTUS, in his reelection bid. Four years later in 1892, a rematch between the 1888 candidates, but now it was President Harrison versus former President Cleveland.

This was the first time a major political party had renominated a former president. Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and Theodore Roosevelt were nominated for president by third parties with MVB getting 10% of the popular vote and that's it. Fillmore carried one State, whereas TR was the first and last third party candidate to come in second, but not the last to carry States. The Republican Party came close to renominating Ulysses S. Grant for a third time, non-consecutively, but the nomination went to dark horse nominee James A. Garfield.

Former President Cleveland would once again win a plurality of the popular vote with 46%, 2% less than his 1884 and 1888 popular vote wins. He and Adlai E. Stevenson would win the General Election, the only time a former president defeated an incumbent. Stevenson would become the 23rd VPOTUS. Cleveland's second term would be labeled as a second presidency, so he would not just be the 22nd POTUS but the 24th POTUS as well.

This gay 1890s ticket of Illinois' Adlai E. Stevenson and Grover Cleveland in 1892.


A ticket to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1892. The ticket is for the 21st of June and 2 days later, Cleveland was renominated a third time by the Democratic Party, or for divisive politicos, the Democrat Party.

Pointless Presidential Pfacts #43 - "Popular Vote Loser Presidents"

On occasion our representative democracy has produced a president that did not receive the most popular votes in the General Election became the head of the Republic, because our Constitution says it is a majority of votes in the Electoral College that matter. The first president to enter office without having won the popular votes was John Quincy Adams in 1825.

The 1824 Presidential Election was the first where various States, not all of them that would be the next election, counted the popular vote in determining the distribution of electoral votes. JQA was facing three other opponents in the general and all from the same party since the Federalists were no longer a threat as a national party to the Democratic-Republicans. Andrew Jackson received a plurality of votes in both popular and electoral votes, with JQA in second place. Third place in the Electoral College went to William Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, and 4th place went to Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the popular vote column the two switch finishing positions, but once again it is the electoral votes that matter. Since there was no clear majority of electoral votes, the Constitution instructs that the House take the top 3 vote getters and vote on them with each State having one vote, so delegations with more than one representative would have to vote among themselves to determine whom they cast their vote for. Crawford suffers a stroke, which makes the House competition between JQA and Jackson, with Clay as presiding officer of the House. Supporters of Jackson believe a "corrupt bargain" was struck between Speaker Clay and Secretary of State Adams, the presidency for appointment to head the State Department, then a stepping stone to the presidency (James Madison and James Monroe, both incumbent secretaries of state before being elected president). Since John C. Calhoun was the vice presidential nominee for both Adams 6 and Jackson, he won a majority of electoral votes in the General Election and later in the Electoral College vote, so there was no need for the Senate to determine the vice president, but they would have had either Adams 6 or Jackson had their own vice presidential candidate. JQA won the House vote and Clay eventually became the secretary of state and Jackson literally began campaigning for 1828. His supporters took up the label Democrats and the Democratic Party was born. Adams 6 and Jackson would face each other again and Jackson would finally get the presidency with 56% of the popular vote and a clear majority in the Electoral College.

Jackson and Adams 6's first encounter in 1824.

And then again in 1828...

52 years later in 1876, the nation would experience another unusual election. Samuel Tilden, the Democratic nominee once again won the popular vote while Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, won the Electoral College votes. But it was determining the distribution of electoral votes that was the problem in 1876. Various State governments in the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War sent two sets of votes representing their State, so a commission of Democrats, Republicans and independents met to determine which candidate got which electoral votes. A deal, or rather, a compromise was made just days before the March 5, 1877 Presidential Inauguration. The Compromise of 1877 allowed Hayes to receive the electoral votes, if Federal troops are removed from the South, thus ending Reconstruction. Since March 4th landed on a Sunday, the public ceremony would be on the 5th, fearful of retaliation by Tilden supporters so closely after the Civil War Hayes was sworn in on the 3rd in the Red Room of the Executive Mansion with President Ulysses S. Grant by his side. They of course had nothing to fear as the inauguration came and went without a problem. Hayes promised to serve just one term and Tilden never faced the voters again, dying ten years after the election.

Two years after Tilden's death in 1888, the nation once again had another unusual election, but that's about it. The 1888 Presidential Election is pretty straight when compared to 1824, 1876, and 2000. President Grover Cleveland won the popular votes while his opponent from Indiana, Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, won the majority of votes in the Electoral College. The Democrat won the popular vote, but the Republican, once again, won the Electoral College. No questions asked. But like in 1828, 1892 would pit the 1888 candidates against each other again, a rematch. And just like in 1828, the candidate that won more votes in the previous election came back and won. Former President Cleveland became the first, and so far only, former president to win a General Election and thus serve two non-consecutive terms. Harrison 23, like Adams 6 and Tilden, never ran for the presidency again after their defeats the second time.

Cleveland 22 runs against Harrison 23 in their first match-up.

Four years later in a rematch, Cleveland became the first and only former president to defeat an incumbent and serve two non-consecutive terms, thus becoming Cleveland 24, as in the 24th POTUS.

It wouldn't be until the year 2000 that nation would experience an election that doesn't go just right. Vice President Al Gore was hoping to do what Vice President George Bush did after 8 years as VPOTUS, and he came pretty close. Gore won more than 500,000 popular votes but it came down to 537 votes in the State of Florida. The election was so close that Gore asked for a recount, but George W. Bush, the presumed winner of the Florida electoral votes, stakes a claim that he won the State. The Florida Supreme Court sides with Gore and the recounts in various counties goes forth, until the Federal Supreme Court sides with Bush in the ruling of Bush v. Gore. Yes, the States' Rights party, went to the central government to decide a local matter. With the Supreme Court's ruling, Gore could do nothing but concede, again. Had the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks not happened, former vice president Gore might have followed in Jackson and Cleveland's footsteps in winning a 4-years-later rematch. But instead Gore went the way of Tilden and did not seek the office where more voters liked him over the Electoral College winner.

With George W. Bush's reelection to the presidency in 2004, another close and controversial election, Bush 43 breaks away from these other popular-vote-loser-presidents. Unlike Adams 6 (another member of the POTUS Father/Son pair) and Harrison 23 (another member of a POTUS dynasty, but grandfather/grandson), Bush 43 would not be defeated in an election. Another difference of course is those two faced a rematch. Bush 43 didn't run against Gore in '04, but Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry. While the votes in Ohio are questionable, and determined the presidency in 2004, just like Florida was in 2000, but this time Bush 43 won both the popular and electoral votes. His victory in '04, finally getting the presidency with the popular vote, broke the whole popular-vote-loser-president never winning the popular vote. This is very similar to what vice-presidents-turned-presidents through death and assassination and their turn at the top of the ticket and winning an election in their own right. Whereas John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Chester A. Arthur never won the presidency at the top of a presidential ticket, Bush 43's break from tradition like Theodore Roosevelt, the first vice-president-turned-president that went on to be renominated and win the presidency in his own right. Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon Johnson would follow in those footsteps. Gerald Ford would come close, but lose to Jimmy Carter.

Pointless Presidential Pfacts #10 - "Cleveland's Popular, the President not the City"

Grover Cleveland gets remembered for being the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms or as the first Democrat elected president since the Civil War. He was also the second bachelor elected in 1884, after James Buchanan in 1856, but that changed when he became the first to get married in the Executive Mansion to the 21 year old, he was 49, Francis Cleveland, the youngest first lady. His non-consecutive two terms wasn't intentional, he lost reelection in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison. Harrison 23, not to be confused with his grandfather William Henry Harrison, the 9th POTUS, won the Electoral College and Cleveland won the popular vote. Unlike the other elections where the popular vote winner lost the Electoral College, this was the only one that was accepted and no commission formed, no Supreme Court involvement, and the Congress didn't have to decide anything. Harrison won, Cleveland lost. When Cleveland returned 4 years later for a rematch, President vs. Former President, he won becoming the first former president to do so. Cleveland's buddy Theodore Roosevelt would come close in 1912 to be the second but no luck there. So Cleveland won the popular vote 3 elections in a row, but he never got over 50% of the vote, and he wasn't renominated in 1896 to try for a fourth consecutive run because of the economic depression, aka the Panic of 1893. The worst depression to face the country until the Great Depression, where a four consecutive term president would handle that and a second world war. That's another Roosevelt and another pointless presidential pfact.

Pointless Presidential Pfacts #1 – “The Rematches of the Centuries!!!”

Rematches are an American thing, from the United States and Germany in two world wars to Rocky versus Apollo in the first two Rocky films. Presidential candidates have also had rematches going as far back as the fourth election in 1800 and continuing into the mid-20th Century. But before you can have the rematch you have to have the first match.In 1796 John Adams became the first of only four incumbent vice presidents to be elected president. He defeated Thomas Jefferson. But seeing that it was a pre-12th Amendment election, the loser became the vice president. Vice President Jefferson would make President Adams’ term a difficult one building to a rematch and the only time the sitting president and vice president competed for the Executive Mansion.

Vice President John Adams vs. former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in 1796.

The election of 1800 was not going to have the same results as four years prior. President Adams and Vice President Jefferson each ran with a “running-mate” so as to avoid being stuck with an ideological opponent disrupting the administration. Good idea, but it was still a pre-12th Amendment America. The plan sort of worked. Jefferson and his running-mate, Aaron Burr, got the same number of Electoral votes, but without distinguishing between the desired offices, throwing the election to the House of Representatives for the first time.

The 1800 rematch between, now incumbent President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, quickly became a match-up between Jefferson and his desired pick for the vice presidency, Aaron Burr.

The House couldn’t stand Burr and by the 36th ballot Jefferson won the election. To make sure the election of 1800 wasn’t repeated, the 12th Amendment was amended to the Constitution before the 1804 election. For the first and only time the vice president defeated the president for the presidency, but a House elected president would just be the first of two.

Twenty-four years after that election came the first match-up between the son of the 2nd president, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, and Tennessean and former war hero Andrew Jackson. But these were not the only two running in an era of good feelings. After the Federalist Party ceased existence post-War of 1812, the Democratic-Republicans were the party of the United States and in the election of 1824 produced four candidates. Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford were the other two contenders. In the end Jackson had the most number of popular and Electoral votes in the first election where a number of the States counted the popular vote. Adams was in second with Crawford and Clay in third and fourth, respectively.

Andrew Jackson ran against John Quincy Adams twice, once in 1824 and the rematch in 1828. In the year 2000, a Democrat from Tennessee will get more votes but not the presidency, when he runs against another presidential son.

But a plurality of votes doesn’t get you the highest office in the land. Without a majority of Electoral votes, the presidency, for a second time, was decided by the House. This meant that the top three vote getters would be decided on, but Clay was the leader of the body to decide the presidency. The Senate did not have to perform its Constitutional duty of selecting a vice president since John C. Calhoun received a majority of Electoral votes both thanks to the 12th Amendment which separates the voting for both president and vice president, but also because he was on two tickets, Adams and Jackson. Crawford had a stroke and the contest in the House ends up being between Jackson and Adams. Adams wins and Jackson believes that a corrupt bargain was struck between Adams and Clay, who would go on to be the secretary of state, the stepping stone office to the presidency. Over the next four years Jackson would essentially run for the presidency, with the support of a new grassroots party calling themselves Democrats, and in a rematch in 1828 Jackson would again get more votes than Adams, but this time with the needed majority to become the 7th president.

President Jackson's handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren, became the last incumbent vice president to win the presidency until 1988. But in the 1836 election Vice President Van Buren easily won election against William Henry Harrison...this time. Four years later, a united Whig Party mimicked the president they despised by running on Harrison's war record just as Jackson had. The 1840 election is the first to have a campaign tune: "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!" Just as Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, Harrison was the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 against a confederacy of native peoples led by Tecumseh in the Territory of Indiana. "Tyler" referenced John Tyler of Virginia, and a former Democrat nominated by the Whigs. Four years prior, Harrison obviously had problems with the campaign slogan: "Tippecanoe and Granger Too!"

Harrison-9's victory in 1840 was short lived once he took office on March 4, 1841 and died thirty days later. Forty-eight years later, President Grover Cleveland, the 22nd president, goes up against Harrison-9's grandson, Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland wins the popular vote, but not the Electoral vote and Harrison becomes the 23rd president. Upon leaving the Executive Mansion in March of 1889, outgoing First Lady Frances Cleveland wanted the staff to keep things in order because the Clevelands would be returning in four years. Four years later the former president was re-nominated and defeated Harrison in both the popular and Electoral votes going on to become the 24th president and the only former president to win an election.

Unlike the 1824, 1876 and 2000 Presidential Elections, the 1888 established a popular vote winner, President Grover Cleveland and the Electoral College winner, Benjamin Harrison. No House of Representatives, no commission, and no Supreme Court. But there like in 1828 to 1824, there was a rematch between President Harrison and former President Cleveland. Cleveland would become the first former president to be reelected non-consecutively, of course, in 1892.

Following the Cleveland-Harrison-23 rematch in 1892 would be the first round for the next match-up, but gone were the match-ups of the popular vote winner returning to reclaim the people’s wish as Jackson and Cleveland did. The next match-up pitted Republican Ohio Governor William McKinley and the Democratic former member of the House William Jennings Bryan, at 36 years old the youngest man to run for president. The winner of the 1896 election would be McKinley and four years later the rematch. In 1896 Bryan became the first presidential candidate to actively campaign for the election traveling the country speaking directly to the people, while McKinley continued the tradition of not actively seeking the sacred office. However in their rematch in 1900, McKinley’s young vice presidential candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, would emulate Bryan’s campaign style. 1900 would be McKinley’s win over Bryan, again.

Fifty-two years after that rematch came the last match-up in presidential General Elections, so far. The 1952 and 1956 elections mirrored the 1896 and 1900 elections in that the two presidential candidates were the same and so were the victors and losers, and coincidentally the same political parties. The Democratic Governor from Illinois, Adlai Stevenson went up against the commander of D-Day and Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, twice. And lost both times.

While not a rematch it is somewhat of a proxy rematch between President Ronald Reagan and the previous administration, this time former Vice President Walter F. Mondale in for the 1980 Democratic candidate President Jimmy Carter.

It has been over fifty years since there was a presidential rematch. There have been proxy rematches like Ronald Reagan versus former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984 instead of Mondale’s running-mate four years earlier, President Jimmy Carter and then there’s George W. Bush versus Al Gore in 2000 essentially George H.W. Bush versus Bill Clinton but with their political heirs instead. Since there probably won’t be a Barack Obama-John McCain rematch in 2012, we’ll probably be waiting a long time before we experience another presidential rematch or we may get a proxy rematch with Obama versus Sarah Palin in 2012.