Astonishing fact: losing re-election can be good for your longevity!
Five of the ten presidents who ran for re-election (or in Ford's case return) to the White House but lost are also the five who lived longest after their term ended so involuntarily. George H.W. Bush was born in 1924, the same year as Jimmy Carter, and is still alive, so it's possible he might make some future version of this list. (The others not returned by the voters are J.Q. Adams, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and Taft.)
Van Buren's extended life after his single term (1837-41) allowed him to run again for President on the Free Soil ticket (with Charles Francis Adams, son of J.Q. Adams and grandson of John Adams) in 1848, winning about 10% of the vote. Cleveland survived a term out of office (1889-93) not only to seek but to win re-election in 1892.
William Howard Taft in his (not altogether unwelcome) retirement from the White House got the job he probably really wanted anyway: Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921-1930). Herbert Hoover in retirement headed various Hoover Commissions to improve government efficiency. Presidents Ford and Carter chaired a joint bipartisan commission on improving presidential elections, whose report can be found on line, but which I fear has been largely unheeded. John Quincy Adams, a U.S. Senator before winning the Presidency, went into the House of Representatives after losing it, campaigning against slavery and dying on the floor of the House in February 1848 — the same year that his son ran for Vice President with Martin Van Buren for President.
The five shortest-surviving Presidents died during their successor's first term (1,460 to 1,461 days), so had they instead sought and won re-election to that term, they might not have completed it. While Washington and Coolidge, on their own initiative, both disclaimed interest in another term, I think that Polk, Arthur and Wilson all had to be discouraged from trying. |
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