List of former United States presidents who ran for office
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/StephenGroverCleveland.png/200px-StephenGroverCleveland.png)
Grover Cleveland is the only president who successfully regained the presidency after leaving it
This is a list of former presidents of the United States who ran for office (the presidency, a seat in Congress, or governor) after leaving office as president. It does not include presidents who sought reelection to a consecutive term while still in office.
Some presidents have been recruited, requested, or drafted to run again. This list, however, only includes those presidents who actively campaigned.
Presidency[]
This list only includes former presidents who ran again for president.
President | Previous term | Reason the president first left office | Year of attempted comeback |
Result | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Martin Van Buren | 1837–1841 | defeated in the general election | 1844 | Lost | Failed in his attempt to win the nomination of the Democratic Party |
1848 | Lost | First nominee of the newly formed Free Soil Party | |||
Millard Fillmore | 1850–1853 | denied nomination by his party | 1856 | Lost | Nominee for the American Party (Know Nothing) |
Ulysses S. Grant | 1869–1877 | retired | 1880 | Lost | Failed in his attempt to win the nomination of the Republican Party |
Grover Cleveland | 1885–1889 | defeated in the general election | 1892 | Won | Only president to succeed at his comeback attempt, he won in 1892 and served four more years |
Theodore Roosevelt | 1901–1909 | retired | 1912 | Lost | Nominee of the Progressive Party (Bull Moose), after he was denied the nomination of the Republican Party |
Herbert Hoover | 1929–1933 | defeated in the general election | 1940 | Lost | Failed in his attempt to win the nomination of the Republican Party |
Other elected office[]
President | Presidential term | Reason for leaving office | Year of election | Office | Result | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
John Quincy Adams | 1825–1829 | Defeated in the general election | 1830–1846 (9 elections) |
U.S. House of Representatives | Won | Only former president to serve in the House, served until his death |
1833 | Governor of Massachusetts | Lost | Continued in House after defeat | |||
John Tyler | 1841–1845 | Denied nomination by his party/withdrew from race | 1861 | Confederate States Congress | Won | Died before he could take office (had served in unelected Provisional Congress) Only former president to ever run for an office outside the United States |
Andrew Johnson | 1865–1869 | Denied nomination by his party | 1868 | U.S. Senate | Lost | Ran for the Senate while president. |
1872 | U.S. House of Representatives | Lost | ||||
1874 | U.S. Senate | Won | Only former president to serve in the Senate, served until his 1875 death |
Major appointed office[]
President | Previous term | Reason first left office | Year of appointment |
Office | Result | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
William Howard Taft | 1909–1913 | defeated in the general election | 1921 | Chief Justice of the United States | Confirmed | Only former president ever to serve on the Supreme Court. |
See also[]
Categories:
- Lists of candidates for President of the United States
- United States presidential history