The History of U.S. Presidential Election Rematches — And What They Might Tell Us About 2024
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With the assumption that Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will be headed for a presidential election rematch in November 2024, you may have heard that it isn’t the first time that’s happened in U.S. history. But what really might surprise you is that Trump vs. Biden Round Two will be the seventh time that presidential candidates have gone head-to-head in multiple general elections.
Today, we take a look back at these elections by seeing how they compare and differ to the Trump/Biden rematch and other noteworthy aspects.
The “Revolution of 1800”: John Adams Versus Thomas Jefferson
Parties: Federalist (Adams), Democratic-Republican (Jefferson)
Net Electoral Vote Change: -6 (Adams), +5 (Jefferson)
States That Flipped Between Candidates:
- Jefferson to Adams: None
- Adams to Jefferson: Maryland, New York
Two of the most famous Founding Fathers had an unusual relationship. They were close friends turned bitter political rivals over how the fledgling United States government should function, foreign policy, and other aspects of governance. The rivalry intensified with Adams’ victory over Jefferson in 1796, but it was the 1800 election where tensions boiled over, with nigh-endless amounts of mud-slinging, insults, and falsehoods hurled between the two campaigns.
Despite the enmity, the election came to be known as the “Revolution of 1800,” as it was the first time power changed hands from the Federalist Party to the Democratic-Republican Party. It also was done so peacefully, at a time when that wasn’t necessarily expected.
But the discord continued between the Adams and Jefferson camps: Adams and the Federalists would quickly push forward the Judiciary Act of 1801 (also called the “Midnight Judges Act”) before he left office, establishing a bunch of judgeships that would be more sympathetic to Adams’ policies shortly before Jefferson took the reins. That would lead directly to the U.S. Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, the case where Chief Justice John Marshall established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, where the court was given the authority to review whether legislative or executive actions are considered constitutional.
Adams and Jefferson would reconcile late in life, however, despite their political differences. And in a remarkable coincidence, they would both die on the same day: July 4, 1826, 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was made official. Both Adams and Jefferson signed it.
Corrupt Bargaining: John Quincy Adams Versus Andrew Jackson
Parties: Democratic-Republicans (both candidates)
Net Electoral Vote Change: -1 (Adams), +79 (Jackson)
States That Flipped Between Candidates:
- Jackson to Adams: Maryland, New Jersey
- Adams to Jackson: New York
- Other candidates to Jackson: Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia
Recap: The second presidential election rematch featured the son of John Adams against a man most famous for his military service in the War of 1812, particularly in the Battle of New Orleans (which actually happened in 1815 a couple weeks after the Treaty of Ghent formally ended the war, but news of its signing had not yet reached the United States). Adams became the first non-Founding Father president in 1824, but how that came to be was what would become most associated with his name in history.
At the time, U.S. politics was a one-party system. The once-vigorous Federalist Party had pretty much dissolved only a few years before the 1824 election, leaving only the Democratic-Republicans (who are now the Democratic Party). Adams was technically a candidate in 1820: A lone faithless elector cast a dissenting vote for him against James Monroe, even though Adams didn’t actually run.
In 1824, when Adams actually was a candidate, he was locked in a heated four-way electoral battle with Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. While Jackson had the most electoral votes with 99, he did not have enough to win the election outright. This threw the contest to a contingent election, where the U.S. House of Representatives decides who becomes president.
Enter the “Corrupt Bargain.” Henry Clay, a seemingly-ubiquitous figure of early American history, used his political influence to push his allies in the U.S. House to vote for Adams in exchange for an appointment to secretary of state. Adams would go on to win in 1824, but he also, like his father, would become a one-term president. All of the states that went fully or mostly to Crawford or Clay in 1824, as well as one state that went to Adams, would go with Jackson in 1828, culminating in Jackson’s victory in the rematch.
Muttonchops and the Shortest Presidency: Martin Van Buren Versus William Henry Harrison
Parties: Democrat (Van Buren), Whig (Harrison)
Net Electoral Vote Change: -110 (Van Buren), +161 (Harrison)
States That Flipped Between Candidates:
- Van Buren to Harrison: Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
- Harrison to Van Buren: None
- Other candidates to Van Buren: South Carolina
- Other candidates to Harrison: Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee
Recap: Today, Van Buren is known primarily as a contender for best facial hair in U.S. political history (and for having a gang named after him), but Van Buren once served as Andrew Jackson’s second vice president. Before that, “Old Kinderhook” (named so for his hometown of Kinderhook, New York) had served New York as a state senator, attorney general, a U.S. Senator, and governor.
But it was his tenure as the next-in-line to the two-term Jackson that ultimately propelled him to the presidency over William Henry Harrison. Harrison made his mark in military service, including campaigns against Native Americans, just like Jackson. Yet that wasn’t enough to overcome Van Buren’s advantage of being vice president. There were no approval rating polls back then, but voters were at least fond enough about Jackson’s tenure to not only vote for him twice for president but to elect Van Buren next.
It also helped that the Whig Party — a motley crew of basically everyone that hated Jackson, including disaffected Democrats — was nascent. They hadn’t fully found their footing yet and they had to keep an incongruous group intact. (Ultimately, the slavery issue would be their undoing.) In their first presidential election they contended in in 1836, the Whig Party even had four different candidates receiving electoral votes. (One of them, Willie Person Mangum, didn’t even get any popular votes. He was apparently very well-liked in South Carolina, even though he used to be a U.S. Senator for North Carolina.) Still, even if their electoral and popular votes were combined, the Whig candidates wouldn’t have had enough to beat Van Buren, as he had a majority of both types of votes.
Things turned sour pretty quickly for Van Buren, however. The Panic of 1837, a severe economic downturn, rocked the still-young nation. Van Buren’s policy responses to the crisis proved to be unpopular. That, along with the annexation of Texas and campaigns to forcibly move Native Americans further west (which Jackson had done during his presidency as well), made for insurmountable troubles for Van Buren’s administration.
When Harrison took him on in round two in 1840, he flipped nine of the states than Van Buren won in 1836 on the former’s way to a resounding victory. (The popular vote wasn’t exactly a blowout, but Harrison took the Electoral College by 234 to 60 votes.) But Harrison didn’t have long to celebrate the victory — he caught pneumonia and died about a month after he was inaugurated, making his the shortest tenure a U.S. president has ever had.
The Nonconsecutive President: Benjamin Harrison Versus Grover Cleveland
Parties: Republican (Harrison), Democrat (Cleveland)
Net Electoral Vote Change: -88 (Harrison), +109 (Cleveland)
States That Flipped Between Candidates:
- Cleveland to Harrison: None
- Harrison to Cleveland: California, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Wisconsin
- Harrison to another candidate: Colorado, Kansas, Nevada
Recap: The late 1800s were known as the Gilded Age in American history. It was named as such for its period of unprecedented, explosive growth in the economy, but with the seamy underside of rampant greed and inordinate amounts of political power wielded by the most wealthy. It was also not long after the end of the Civil War, featuring the beginning and end of the Reconstruction Era and the establishment of Jim Crow laws in the South.
In 1884, Grover Cleveland became the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War. With the Democratic base and the “Mugwump” Republicans who crossed party lines, Cleveland perhaps seemed to be headed for victory in 1888 as well. But while he captured the popular vote by about 90,000 votes, he lost the Electoral College 233–168 to Benjamin Harrison, grandson of the aforementioned William Henry Harrison.
(Cleveland wasn’t the first candidate to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote. Compared to the times that happened prior, however, it was relatively noncontroversial. John Quincy Adams’ presidency was marred by the Corrupt Bargain in 1824. And the 1876 election’s controversy over votes was resolved through the Compromise of 1877: In exchange for Democrats agreeing to make Republican Rutherford B. Hayes president, Republicans ended Reconstruction in the South.)
But several major changes in the political landscape happened from the 1888 to 1892 presidential election, when Cleveland vied against Harrison again. Six new states were admitted to the Union — Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming. In the leadup to the 1892 election, the Populist Party formed with James Weaver as its presidential candidate. Weaver even managed to take two of the new states as well as three states that Harrison won in 1888.
More importantly, Harrison lost a lot of support in the north. Five of the states he won against Cleveland in 1888 were won by Cleveland in 1892. Particularly pivotal were Illinois (24 electoral votes), Indiana (15 electoral votes), and New York (36 electoral votes). With the Electoral College inroads made in the north, Cleveland became the first and only president to win nonconsecutive terms in office — a feat Donald Trump is now trying to match.
A Battle of Wills: William Jennings Bryan Versus William McKinley
Parties: Democrat (Bryan), Republican (McKinley)
Net Electoral Vote Change: -21 (Bryan), +21 (McKinley)
States That Flipped Between Candidates:
- McKinley to Bryan: Kentucky
- Bryan to McKinley: Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
Recap: The two straight matchups between Cleveland and Harrison would be directly followed by another match and rematch.
The Populist Party from the 1892 election was effectively short-lived, but its ethos wasn’t. Three of its primary platform points were the free coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and the direct election of U.S. senators. The income tax and direct election of U.S. Senators would eventually become the 16th and 17th Amendments to U.S. Constitution in 1913, respectively. In 1896, the Democratic Party, in a sense, co-opted the Populists’ free silver platform by nominating William Jennings Bryan, leading most Populists to endorse Bryan (though running a separate candidate for vice president).¹ From that point on, the Populist Party was basically inconsequential in presidential politics.
The Republican Party nominated William McKinley, the then-governor of Ohio. (Fun fact: You can find McKinley on the $500 bill, which is no longer in circulation and mostly in the hands of collectors and dealers.) McKinley and Bryan squared off in what would become a particular consequential election in hindsight in 1896.
Commentator Ronald Brownstein, in his book The Second Civil War, calls the 1896 campaign “a distant ancestor of the modern campaign for the White House.” The Republican Party built a massive campaign apparatus around McKinley, though McKinley himself stuck with the then-tradition of candidates refraining from personal campaigning. Bryan, meanwhile, took his populist brand across the country, a campaigning style that’s a given for major presidential contenders in the modern day. Bryan was also a catalyst for moving the Democratic Party towards an activist government platform, while McKinley’s vision moved the Republican Party towards government partnering with business.² ³
The 1896 election is considered by many (but not all) political scientists and commentators to be a realignment election. In these elections, the usual coalitions that back the two main parties undergo seismic, longer-term shifts and new coalitions behind the parties form. McKinley’s 1896 victory did just that.⁴ With it came what’s often termed the Fourth Party System in U.S. history, an era of dominance by the Republican Party where they won seven of the nine presidential elections from 1896 to 1928, had a U.S. Senate majority for 13 of 15 congressional terms, and a U.S. House majority for 12 of 15 congressional terms.
This dominance included a second McKinley win in 1900, once again against Bryan and with a wider margin in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. It was the first time a presidential election rematch was won by the same person who won the first matchup. But McKinley’s second term would not last for long. In September 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot the president at point blank range. McKinley died days later, and Czolgosz was executed within a couple months.
The U.S. Likes Ike: Adlai E. Stevenson Versus Dwight Eisenhower
Parties: Republican (Eisenhower), Democrat (Stevenson)
Net Electoral Vote Change: -16 (Stevenson), +15 (Eisenhower)
States That Flipped Between Candidates:
- Eisenhower to Stevenson: Missouri
- Stevenson to Eisenhower: Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia
Recap: The Republican dominance of the federal government at the start of the 20th century gave way to a Democratic iron grip for four to five decades. But one of the lone bright spots for the GOP was when Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, five-star general and Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II, ran for president. The enormously popular figure briefly retired from active service in 1948 only to come back to it as the Supreme Allied Commander, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 1950 to 1952.
Eisenhower would run for president, and the Democratic candidate with the unenviable task of trying to defeat him in the election was Adlai E. Stevenson II. Stevenson was the governor of Illinois at the time, defeating a different Republican candidate named Dwight for that office in 1948. But he had little to no chance against Eisenhower, who decisively won the presidency in 1952 by 353 electoral votes and almost 6.5 million popular votes.
Eisenhower kept up his high approval ratings throughout his first term in office and ran for reelection in 1956 in the midst of the continuing postwar economic boom. There was likely no candidate the Democratic Party could run to defeat him, but Stevenson tried again anyway. Eisenhower would emerge victorious in an even larger rout the second time, winning by 384 electoral votes and over 9.5 million popular votes. This made Eisenhower the second president to defeat the same challenger twice in a presidential general election, along with McKinley.
Can Previous Presidential Election Rematches Tell Us Anything About 2024?
We always have to be careful with these kinds of comparisons because these elections were so long along ago. The second go-around between Eisenhower and Stevenson was nearly 70 years ago — almost nobody who is alive now was old enough to vote then. Party coalitions have changed considerably over the years. The pressing issues of the day are also vastly different in many ways.
Nevertheless, we might find some interesting parallels between yesteryear and now. Let’s go back through each rematch and compare them to Trump vs. Biden.
Adams vs. Jefferson: At first glance, it’s hard to see much similarity here. We don’t have election returns for the popular vote from back then, though we know that Maryland and New York flipped from Adams in 1796 to Jefferson in 1800 in the Electoral College. But there were also far fewer states back then.
Q. Adams vs. Jackson: Just as Democrats have accused Trump of election improprieties in 2016, so have Republicans made cheating allegations against Biden’s campaign in 2020. The Corrupt Bargain of 1824 was the first major controversy related to who won the presidential election, although the specific events — real or perceived — are much different now versus then. It undoubtedly had a major impact on the 1828 election. How much the accusations against Trump and Biden will impact 2024 is unclear, but they may also play a major role.
Jackson was also the forerunner of American populism, long before William Jennings Bryan and his Populist Party. Many political observers see Trump as a type of populist. Just as Jackson championed the idea of being anti-establishment, breaking a string of presidencies considered to be the establishment, we also see that in Trump’s candidacy. It helped propel Jackson to the presidency. Will it assist Trump in getting back into the Oval Office in 2024 like it first did for him in 2016?
Van Buren vs. H. Harrison: Van Buren’s experience as a vice president to Jackson was one of the biggest factors in him becoming president. It wasn’t nearly as critical for Biden — some of his support was backlash towards Trump’s term as the chief executive — but his tenure as Barack Obama’s vice president did play a role in him winning in 2020.
Yet the support quickly wore off for Van Buren with the economic plummet that came with the Panic of 1837. Whether it’s fair or not for Van Buren to be blamed for that, it still was a prominent factor in him losing the rematch to H. Harrison. While the economic situation of today (particularly when it comes to inflation) isn’t as dire as it was then, it still poses a serious issue for Biden’s reelection campaign, however fair or unfair it may be to blame him. Of course, the economy is always a critical component to who wins an election, but it will likely be particularly impactful in 2024 like it was in 1840.
Lastly, Michigan and Pennsylvania turned out to be states that flipped in their support, going from Van Buren in 1836 to Harrison in 1840. While their electorates are obviously much different now than they were then, they are two of the likeliest states in 2024 to flip from the candidate they supported in 2020.
Harrison vs. Cleveland: This is the most obvious comparison to make because Cleveland is our only president to serve nonconsecutive terms in office. Trump is now trying to do the same thing. Harrison vs. Cleveland was also the first presidential rematch where the loser of the first round won the second round, another feat Trump is trying to repeat. Lastly, Wisconsin was one of the states that flipped candidates from 1888 to 1892, shifting from Harrison to Cleveland, and it’s one of the likeliest states to flip again in 2024.
Bryan vs. McKinley: The 1896 election is considered a political realignment and one of the most pivotal elections in our nation’s history. Whether the 2016 election victory for Trump could be seen as a political realignment election, we’ll get a better sense of whether that is the case in 2024. That’s because you can’t really know if a realignment is happening until several elections down the road, when there is more data available. It’s always easy to consider the next election the biggest election ever because it’s the one that’s happening now, but it will be highly important for determining how the political loyalties of the electorate are shifting.
Stevenson vs. Eisenhower: No glaringly obvious comparison comes to mind when looking back on the last presidential election rematch, save for that it is a Republican competing against a Democrat. The approval ratings for both Trump and Biden have never been anything like Eisenhower’s. But a possible juxtaposition could come from how many states flipped back in 1956. Only four states changed which candidate they chose back then. In 2024, there aren’t that many states that are considered to have a serious chance to be up for grabs, so we may see relatively few shifts in who states vote for in 2024 just like what happened in 1956.
In any case, the comparisons to these previous rematches will be much easier to make when the 2024 election results finally happen. The first four times — Adams vs. Jefferson, Q. Adams vs. Jackson, Van Buren vs. H. Harrison, and Harrison vs. Cleveland — saw a different winner in the rematch than in the first go-around. But the last two times, Bryan vs. McKinley, and Stevenson vs. Eisenhower, have seen the same candidate win both matchups.
Which camp will Trump vs. Biden fall into? It’s a tight matchup between them, making predictions even harder. Obviously, Biden would like to emulate the results for McKinley and Eisenhower. Either way, monumental history is going to be made.
- Congressional Quarterly. Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections Third Edition. Pages 266–267.
- Brownstein, Ronald. The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America. Penguin Press, 2007. Pages 27–28.
- WILLIAMS, R. HAL. Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896. University Press of Kansas, 2010. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1z27h03.
- Campbell, James E. “Party Systems and Realignments in the United States, 1868–2004.” Social Science History, vol. 30, no. 3, 2006, pp. 359–86. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40267912.
