How long did US Presidents last in office? How successful were they at being re-elected?

[lpetrich]

I decided to make a list of how long each President has served in office, and the level of success of each one at achieving re-election. Out of all 44 US Presidents so far,

• One term, died in office or resigned -- 5 -- WH Harrison, Z Taylor, J Garfield, W Harding, JF Kennedy
• One term, did not seek re-election -- 3 -- J Polk, J Buchanan, R Hayes
• One term, sought re-election but failed -- 15 -- J Adams, JQ Adams, M Van Buren, J Tyler, M Fillmore, F Pierce, A Johnson, C Arthur, B Harrison, WH Taft, H Hoover, G Ford, J Carter, GHW Bush, D Trump
• One term, sought re-election, failed, and later succeeded -- 1 -- G Cleveland
• More than one term in sequence, died in office or resigned -- 4 -- A Lincoln, W McKinley, FD Roosevelt, R Nixon
• More than one term in sequence, was term-limited -- 5 -- D Eisenhower, R Reagan, B Clinton, GW Bush, B Obama
• More than one term in sequence, did not seek re-election at the end -- 8 -- G Washington, T Jefferson, J Madison, J Monroe, A Jackson, US Grant, C Coolidge, LB Johnson
• More than one term in sequence, did not seek re-election, but unsuccessfully tried later -- 1 -- T Roosevelt
• More than one term in sequence, sought re-election at the end, but failed -- 2 -- W Wilson, H Truman

Terms include partial and complete ones.

The most common fate of a President was serving one term, trying to be re-elected, and failing. Counting other fates, there were 23 one-term Presidents. There were also 21 multiterm Presidents, Presidents who won at least one re-election.

Only one President has served more than two complete terms, FDR, and that's what provoked the 22nd Amendment, with its two-term term limit for Presidents. Earlier Presidents had served at most two complete terms, but that was custom rather than explicit law.

 

[ideologyhunter]

How many went into deep, irreversible psychosis after losing their reelection bid?

 

[lpetrich]

How many went into deep, irreversible psychosis after losing their reelection bid?

You may want to research that issue. But that does not seem to have happened to the most recent Presidents to do so, George Bush I and Jimmy Carter. It didn't even happen to Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than be removed from office for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

 

[Swammerdami]

Nitpick:

...

• ...
• More than one term in sequence, did not seek re-election at the end -- ... LB Johnson
• More than one term in sequence, sought re-election at the end, but failed -- ... H Truman

I'm not sure LBJ and HST should be classified differently. Each entered the New Hampshire primary. (LBJ won that primary, but by a humiliatingly small margin over McCarthy; HST — who was actively trying to recruit an alternative, e.g. Ike — lost the NH primary to Kefauver.) Each of the two withdrew a few weeks after the NH primary.

 

[lpetrich]

So LBJ was like Truman in that respect - running again but failing.

 

[lpetrich]

With revision for LBJ:

• One term, died in office or resigned -- 5 -- WH Harrison, Z Taylor, J Garfield, W Harding, JF Kennedy
• One term, did not seek re-election -- 3 -- J Polk, J Buchanan, R Hayes
• One term, sought re-election but failed -- 15 -- J Adams, JQ Adams, M Van Buren, J Tyler, M Fillmore, F Pierce, A Johnson, C Arthur, B Harrison, WH Taft, H Hoover, G Ford, J Carter, GHW Bush, D Trump
• One term, sought re-election, failed, and later succeeded -- 1 -- G Cleveland
• More than one term in sequence, died in office or resigned -- 4 -- A Lincoln, W McKinley, FD Roosevelt, R Nixon
• More than one term in sequence, was term-limited -- 5 -- D Eisenhower, R Reagan, B Clinton, GW Bush, B Obama
• More than one term in sequence, did not seek re-election at the end -- 8 -- G Washington, T Jefferson, J Madison, J Monroe, A Jackson, US Grant, C Coolidge
• More than one term in sequence, did not seek re-election, but unsuccessfully tried later -- 1 -- T Roosevelt
• More than one term in sequence, sought re-election at the end, but failed -- 2 -- W Wilson, H Truman, LB Johnson

Terms include partial and complete ones.

What Makes A One-Term President? | FiveThirtyEight

"Donald Trump is officially a one-term president, the first to fail a reelection bid in nearly 30 years. But history shows his loss isn’t surprising, given the circumstances." - Presidents were all one-term between 1837 and 1860, and between 1900 and 1932, only one President served two full terms. But over the last 60 years, the 22nd Amendment term limit has cut short several Presidents' careers.

"Let’s start with the biggest factor that ties one-term presidents together: a major economic downturn." - Herbert Hoover is an obvious one, though economic troubles also dragged down Jimmy Carter and Jerry Ford. Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower survived downturns better because those downturns happened away from election years.

"There’s also the question of how a president leads in a moment of crisis, which has been the downfall of many a one-term president." - also trouble for Hoover, Ford, and Carter.

Trump had a slumping economy and a failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, so he fits with other one-term Presidents there.

What is interesting here, though, is that in spite of these conditions, Trump was a competitive incumbent. Both parties benefited from record turnout, and, in the end, he will probably have won about 47 percent of the popular vote, compared to more like 40 percent for Hoover, Carter, and Bush. Despite Trump’s low approval ratings, he didn’t face a serious primary challenger either — which also makes his experience different from that of Ford, Carter and Bush.

That's Bush I.

One has to marvel at the zeal of his supporters. They made Biden's victory a narrow one, and they hurt the Democrats in Congress and in state legislatures.