Twice Nonconsecutively

60 is few if you consider that in the entire duration of the United States that is the number of times our nation has inaugurated a president. This year, on January 20, Donald Trump's inauguration is the 60th, and it is only the second time in history a person regained the White House nonconsecutively.

Grover Cleveland (a Democrat) was the 22nd and 24th president and now it can be said that Trump (a Republican) is the 45th and 47th president. Both Cleveland and Trump, in all three of their elections garnered under 50 percent of the popular vote; however, Cleveland in all three of his contests won a plurality of the popular vote whereas Trump did so only once (which was the 2024 election).

What happened 132 years ago when Cleveland, like the later Trump, made a political comeback after first losing reelection? Both candidates had the Deep South as their strong base of support, although each time Cleveland won the national election (1884 and 1892) he also won New York, and during the third time he even won California. While each candidate won some of the Midwest states, that helped drive their success. Trump also had a base in the upper Great Plains, which Cleveland did not have.

Both Cleveland and Trump ran for office as candidates of change. Cleveland was nicknamed "Grover the Good" due to his honesty, whereas such a moniker for Trump would elicit heated debate. One thing that certainly makes the two men different is Grover was anti-tariff, whereas Trump is pro-tariff.

For those who are sad or jubilant that Trump's popular vote in the last election was less than half (49.8 percent), they should consider the other presidents who entered office in similar fashion: John Quincy Adams, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln (once), Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Woodrow Wilson (twice), Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon (once), Bill Clinton (twice), and George W. Bush (once).

Dr. Roger Chapman, who joined Palm Beach Atlantic University in 2007, teaches U.S. history, Russian history, the Cold War, history of modern terrorism, history of the American presidents, and modern humanities. He is the faculty advisor of the campus chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. Dr. Chapman is the editor of the two-volume Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices (2010), editor of Social Scientists Explain the Tea Party Movement (2012), and co-editor of the three-volume Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices (2014). He has published in academic journals, namely the Journal of Cold War Studies, Film & History, the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, and the Florida Historical Quarterly.