What does it take to win back the White House? Trump's quest to do what only one president has done before

Two years ago, former President Donald Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and announced his third presidential bid.

"America's comeback starts right now," he said, calling his time out of office a "pause."

Trump, who was the 45th President of the United States from 2017 to 2021, is now the Republican nominee for the 47th presidency.

He is not the first to try and make his way back into the Oval Office. Many have attempted and failed before him, including Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Ulysses S. Grant in 1880, Millard Fillmore in 1856 and Martin Van Buren in 1844 and 1848.

In all of American history, only one president — Stephen Grover Cleveland — has succeeded in winning nonconsecutive terms. If Trump wins November's election, he will become the second president to leave the White House and return four years later.

Who was former President Grover Cleveland?

Grover Cleveland ended the Republican Party's nearly three-decade long hold on the presidency when he won the 1884 election, becoming the first Democrat to hold office since the Civil War ended.

The former Buffalo mayor and New York governor had garnered the support of the Democrats and "Mugwumps," Republican reformists who opposed Cleveland's opponent, James G. Blaine. Cleveland built a reputation of honesty in politics amid the corruption of the Gilded Age, earning him the nickname of "Ugly Honest."

During his first term, Cleveland angered railroad companies by forcing them to return 81 million acres of illegally annexed federal land in the west and signed the Interstate Commerce Act, the first federal law regulating railroads. He also signed the Dawes Act, which allowed the government to break up tribal lands to eliminate the social cohesion of Native Americans.

He barred special favors to any economic group, vetoed more than 400 bills and called for the Republican Congress to reduce tariffs. When he was told that he had given Republicans something to vote against in the next election cycle, Cleveland said, "What is the use of being elected or reelected unless you stand for something?"

Despite winning the popular vote by more than 100,000 votes in 1888, he lost his second presidential bid in the electoral college to Benjamin Harrison, 233 to 157.

Like Trump's 2020 run, the election had allegations of voter fraud; unlike 2020, evidence of fraud was clear in some states, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Still, Cleveland accepted defeat with grace, even holding an umbrella over Harrison's head as the nation's 23rd president gave his inauguration speech.

"This noble example which he sets will not be lost upon this country," The New York World wrote of Cleveland's concession, according to The Washington Post.

(Trump skipped President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021 and still maintains that the 2020 elections were "rigged.")

Cleveland and Harrison came head-to-head again in 1892. Voters had lost confidence in Harrison, whose high-tariff policy was seen as unfriendly to labor; this was punctuated by a wave of violent labor strikes at silver mines that summer. Cleveland achieved a decisive victory, making him both the 22nd and 24th president of the United States.

Cleveland's second term was defined by the Panic of 1893, one of the most severe financial crises America has faced. He repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which had placed silver as the backing of the U.S. dollar, and maintained the Treasury's gold reserve through what critics saw as "collusion" with Wall Street.

During the Pullman Strike of 1894, Cleveland responded with an iron first, dispatching troops against railroad strikers in Chicago. It resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers and earned Cleveland a reputation as a union buster.

Cleveland signed a bill declaring Labor Day a national holiday amid the crisis.

His handling of the economic depression was wildly unpopular, leading to the "greatest realignment of voters since the Civil War," according to the Smithsonian. Democrats lost support everywhere but in the Deep South. Cleveland did not run for a third term. He retired in Princeton, New Jersey, and died on June 24, 1908.

Who succeeded President Grover Cleveland after his second term?

Republican President William McKinley became the 25th president in U.S. history when he bested William Jennings Bryan, who had claimed the Democratic ticket after Cleveland did not seek reelection during the 1896 race.

The election largely came down to monetary policy and addressing the aftermath of the depression. Urban voters feared that the free coinage of silver — which Bryan championed — would be the ruin of the country, helping to tip the scales in McKinley's favor.

What is significant about Grover Cleveland's reelection as president?

Cleveland's presidencies came more than a century before Trump's third bid at the White House this November but hover over the 2024 election for some obvious historical reasons.

If successful in regaining the Oval Office, Trump will join Cleveland as the second president to win a nonconsecutive term like Cleveland.

There's also the chance he follows Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore and Teddy Roosevelt as presidents who sought nonconsecutive terms but fell short at the ballot box.