Polls show that the public would prefer not to see Biden/Trump II – it’s not like an exciting Ali/Frazier heavyweight boxing rematch – by a fairly significant margin. Some 75 percent of voters polled by the Associated Press in late November said they did not want Democrat Biden to run again; while 69 percent of voters said they did not want to see Republican Trump back on the ballot.
Other polling data indicates that 19 percent of voters have an “unfavorable” view of both Biden and Trump. Would they stay home in November 2024 in a country where total turnout for a presidential election has never gotten to even 70 percent in the last 100 years? (That’s slightly less than French election turnout but a bit more than Japan among major democracies.)
Lack of voter enthusiasm is a big problem in a country that prides itself in being the World Leader in democracy.
The last time two presidents faced off was 1912, when President William Howard Taft and former President Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican vote, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected with just 42 percent of the popular vote.
Of course, Trump is attempting to do what only Democrat Grover Cleveland has done previously – be elected to two non-consecutive terms. Cleveland won in 1884, lost to Miami University graduate Benjamin Harrison in 1888, then beat Harrison in the rematch in 1892.
Cleveland would like to have run again in 1896, but the Democrats had soured on him by then, and William Jennings Bryan – long remembered for his “Cross of Gold” speech – ran and lost to Ohio’s William McKinley in 1896 and 1900.
Trump will be on the ballot for a third straight time and that happens very infrequently.
Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt ran and won four consecutive times against four different opponents beginning in 1932, which led to the 22nd Amendment limiting presidential terms. My mother, growing up in Evansville, Ind., used to laugh that her parents would always “cancel out” each other’s votes for president during the Roosevelt years.
Republican Richard Nixon is the last presidential candidate to lose and then return to win – losing in 1960, winning in 1968 and again in 1972. Nixon was actually on the GOP ticket five times, since he was twice the vice presidential candidate with Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Of course, Nixon later resigned in disgrace in 1974 following the Watergate break-in fiasco.
Some think Biden, now age 81, could still decide to pull out of the race due to the indictment of his son, Hunter. The last incumbent to step aside was President Lyndon B. Johnson, who dropped a bombshell announcement on March 31, 1968, saying he would not run for re-election. His unpopular prosecution of the Vietnam War wrecked his re-election chances.
Age is an issue with both Biden and Trump (age 77). No major candidate has died on the campaign trail, though 61-year-old Horace Greeley (“Go West, young man!”) passed away 23 days after losing to Ulysses S. Grant in 1872.
I file all of these presidential details under the category of “fascinating stuff.” The bottom line: Voting is paramount in our country. I will plan to vote no matter who is on the upcoming ballot. So should you. Why? Because we get to!
Dirk Q. Allen is a former opinion page editor of the JournalNews. He lives in Oxford.
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