List of former United States presidents who ran for office
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. |