Three Time Nominee

Generally speaking, politicians only win the nomination for president one or two times.  Parties normally only nominate the politician for a 2nd time if he is the incumbent.  To take examples from recent years, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump were each nominated for 2nd terms while Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton were not renominated.  The winners get a second shot while the losers are usually tossed aside.  Of course, there are exceptions.  Sometimes the loser is given a second chance.  For instance, Adlai Stevenson lost to Eisenhower in 1952, but was nominated again in 1956; he lost again.  In a couple of cases, there have been three-time losers: both Henry Clay & William Jennings Bryan were nominees in 3 separate elections.

Looking only at men who served as president, how many of them were nominated on three separate occasions?

Thomas Jefferson was the Democratic-Republican nominee for president in 1796, 1800, and 1804.  He came in second place in 1796, which secured him the vice presidency.  He won the presidency in 1800 and was nominated for re-election in 1804.

Andrew Jackson was one of four Democratic-Republican nominees in 1824.  Though he won the plurality of electoral votes and popular vote, he lost to John Quincy Adams in the contingent election.  He was the Democratic nominee (the Democratic-Republican party had split into factions after the 1824 debacle) in both 1828 and 1832.

Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's chosen successor.  He won in 1836 and was renominated in 1840.  Though he lost in 1840, he became the Free-Soil Party candidate in 1848, marking his 3rd time running in the general election.

Grover Cleveland ran for office in 1884 and won.  However, when he ran for re-election in 1888, he lost to Benjamin Harrison.  He secured the Democratic nomination again in 1892 and won.  He was the first president to serve non-consecutive terms.

Richard Nixon ran for president in 1960.  He lost to JFK.  However, he managed to win the nomination again in 1968 and went on to win the presidency.  He won re-election in 1972, though he didn't finish his term.

Donald Trump duplicated Grover Cleveland's feat.  He won in 2016, lost his 2020 re-election bid, but then came back to win in 2024.

Of this group, Jefferson, Jackson, Cleveland, and Trump were nominees in three consecutive elections.

Presidential Rankings - The So-So Ones

The tier three presidents - rating as 'neutral' - were those who had mixed legacies.

John Tyler: He established that the VP would become the full-fledged president in the event of a president's death.  He vetoed Henry Clay's economic plan and negotiated the annexation of Texas.  However, he died during the Civil War as a member of the Confederacy.

Millard Filmore: He approved the Compromise of 1850 and opened trade with Japan.  He later sullied his reputation by running as a Know-Nothing.

Rutherford Hayes: He ended Reconstruction, peacefully addressed violent labor, fought inflation, and installed the first telephone in the White House.

Grover Cleveland: Resisted the populist impulses of the Bryan era, wanted a strong dollar, but plagued by labor riots and the Panic of 1893.

Benjamin Harrison: Improved foreign relations in the Western Hemisphere and pushed out political hacks for competent personnel.

William Howard Taft: A humdrum presidency between two egomaniacs.  The most distinguished ex-president by serving as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

John F Kennedy: He had the most inspiring rhetoric, set the US on a path to the moon, and turned the Soviets back from Cuba.

George Bush: Significant president who had successes and failures.  Did not partake in the post-presidency criticism of predecessors or successors.

George W. Bush: Also a significant president who had successes and failures.  Did not partake in the post-presidency criticism of predecessors or successors.

Tyler missed out on a higher ranking because of his post-presidency.  It wasn't until the 25th Amendment that his action of assuming the presidency was codified.  He gamed the 1844 election to assure the annexation of Texas.  Filmore may have sent Perry to Japan, but he was out of office by the time Perry returned.  By approving the Compromise of 1850, the Civil War was almost certainly averted for another 10 years that improved the North's chances of winning.  Hayes didn't exactly agree with the end of Reconstruction.  Sam Tilden - the Democrat - won the popular vote and the electoral vote was questionable.  There was a lot of fraud and disenfranchisement of blacks.  In order to assure Hayes as president, Reconstruction was put on the chopping block.  I wouldn't give Hayes credit for that.  Cleveland was a northern Democrat who wasn't so keen on civil rights.  However, he was vastly better than the next Democrat president would be.  Harrison and Taft are suited to the neutral tier.  JFK did give some of the best speeches.  Though outwardly it looked like the US won the Cuban Missile Crisis, it has since been shown to be a draw; Russia got a quid pro quo.  George Bush was trained to be a foreign policy president, to continue the Cold War, and then it ended a year into his presidency!  He was not meant to be a domestic president, somewhere he did not excel.  Despite George W Bush getting re-elected where his father didn't, I'd rate his father as the better president.  However, middle of the pack suits both father and son.

Super Tuesday Fallout

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have each trounced the competition on Super Tuesday.  Trump won every contest except Vermont, while Biden won all but American Somoa.  With Vermont, Nikki Haley was bolstered by Democrats who voted in the open primary.  Jason Palmer defeated Biden in American Somoa by a vote of 51 to 40.  Yeah, not a big turnout and basically meaningless except as a funny footnote.

As of today, Nikki has suspended her campaign and Trump is effectively the nominee.  Both Trump and Biden should have their nominations officially sewn up by the end of the month.  The rematch is coming but now both candidates have presidential records to compare.  With illegal immigration as an issue, Trump wins that topic by a wide margin.  The economy is trickier since there are positives and negatives to examine from each of their presidencies.  With Trump as the nominee, Biden's age becomes less of an issue, though his mental health stays on the table.

Will 2024 be a repeat of Grover Cleveland or William McKinley.  Grover Cleveland ran twice against Benjamin Harrison, losing the first time but winning in the rematch.  William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and beat him again in the 1900 rematch.

Ex-Presidents Who Ran Again

Generally speaking, when a president has left office, that has been the end of his political career.  Few men go on to seek lesser elective offices or pursue posts inferior to the presidency.  However, some have sought to resume the office of president after having left the job.

Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) had been the attorney general of New York, Governor of New York, a Senator from New York, the Secretary of State, the Vice President under Andrew Jackson, and finally President.  His term did not go well and he was voted out of office in 1840.  However, he sought the Democratic nomination in 1844, but lost to Polk.  In the 1848 election, a party split over the regulation of slavery in the territories led to the Free Soil Party.  The Free Soilers nominated Van Buren.  His running mate was Charles Francis Adams, son of President John Quincy Adams, and grandson of President John Adams.  Though he won 10% of the votes, Van Buren won no electoral votes.

Millard Filmore (1800-1874) had been a congressman and President Zachary Taylor's vice president.  When Taylor died in July 1850, Filmore became president.  Filmore was ambivalent about running for a term of his own in the 1852 election.  He was unpopular with Northern Whigs.  A backroom deal to get the nomination to either Daniel Webster or Filmore fell through, and Winfield Scott became the party nominee.  By 1856, the Whig Party was split by slavery, many migrating to the new Republican Party.  The American Party - better known as the Know Nothing Party - gathered other remnants of the Whigs.  The party nominated Filmore.  Filmore did better than Van Buren, winning 21.5% of the popular vote and 8 electoral votes.

Ulysses Grant (1822-1885) had left the White House after two terms.  However, in the wake of the Hayes Presidency, he sought a return to the presidency.  Many felt that this was a breech of Washington's two-term limit, which surely impacted later results.  In a convention fight, Grant was the lead candidate, but could not secure enough delegates for the nomination.  Eventually, the convention selected James Garfield for the nomination.

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) had won the presidency in 1884, the first Democrat to do so since James Buchanan in 1856.  However, he was voted out in 1888.  Cleveland was determined to return to office.  In the 1892 campaign, he was his party's clear frontrunner, but only narrowly secured the nomination.  He then went on to win the election, becoming the first - and so far only - president to serve non-consecutive terms.  Cleveland did not seek re-election in 1896, perhaps because his party had disowned him for his stance on the gold standard.  He supported the National Democratic Party in 1896 but refused to be the party nominee; this was a splinter party that supported the gold standard.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) had been a New York Assemblyman, New York City Police Commissioner, Governor of New York, Colonel in the Spanish-American War, and Vice President under William McKinley.  He became president on McKinley's assassination and was handily re-elected in 1904.  He selected William Howard Taft to succeed him in 1908.  Displeased with the Taft Administration, Roosevelt sought to win the Republican nomination.  That Taft's margin of victory at the convention came from Southern states that Republicans hadn't won since the 1870s irked Roosevelt.  He formed the Bullmoose Party and thus elected Woodrow Wilson.  Roosevelt won 27% of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes.  Taft won 23% of the vote and only 8 electoral votes.

Donald Trump (1946-) is the first man elected to the presidency who had been neither a politician or a soldier.  After a tumultuous presidency, he was defeated for re-election in one of the most troubled elections on record.  He claimed it was stolen.  He is currently the leading nominee for the Republican Party, having won both Iowa and New Hampshire thus far.  If successful, he will repeat Grover Cleveland's achievement.  Even if not elected, he will be the first ex-president to secure his party's nomination for another run and not win.

Clearly, most modern presidents learned from history that it was almost certainly a losing proposition.  Also, the 25th Amendment limited a president to 10 years, which would have nixed both Grant and Roosevelt's efforts.