Something seems seriously wrong with the way our political parties select candidates for presidential elections. As I write this, a slight majority of Republicans would prefer someone other than Donald Trump to be the party’s nominee in next year’s election. Yet the former president, as presumptive head of his party, seems likely to successfully secure his party’s nomination.
Similarly, President Joe Biden is very likely to secure the nomination from the Democrat Party despite more than half of party members desiring a different candidate. As president, he is also considered the head of his party and as I write this, it seems unlikely that any other candidate will be successful in wrenching the party’s nomination away from him.
Despite neither man being the preferred candidate by the majority of members from his party, it seems very likely that those two men—a president and a former president—will once again be on the ballot in November, 2024.
Both a sitting president and a former president have enormous power within a political party, and while that party can consolidate behind a different candidate, the result is nearly always disastrous.
Tyler’s secret plan required the willing cooperation of a friendly Secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur, and a compliant Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Gilmer, as well as the knowledge that—if the plan was successful and Texas was annexed—Tyler was likely to be forgiven by both his party and the electorate. Unfortunately, just before the plan was to be put into action, there was a ceremony aboard the USS Princeton, which was armed with the “Peacemaker”—the largest naval cannon in the world. When the admiring crowd convinced the captain to fire the massive gun as a demonstration, the gun blew up, instantly killing both Secretaries Upshur and Gilmer, as well as any chance of Tyler’s being nominated, much less elected.
Denied the nomination by the Whig Party, Tyler formed an independent party, The National Democratic Party, and ran as the new party’s presidential nominee. Naturally, he lost, and since he had siphoned off so many of the Whig voters, so did his former party’s candidate, Henry Clay. Tyler’s defection from the Whig Party gave the victory to the Democrat candidate, James Polk.
In 1852, President Millard Fillmore wanted to run for reelection, but had powerful opposition within his own party, the Whigs. Both Daniel Webster and General Winfield Scott desired the nomination and each sought to convince Fillmore to support their candidacy. At the party convention, no candidate could secure enough votes for the nomination. After multiple ballots, some of Fillmore’s delegates began to defect to Scott, and Fillmore finally announced his support for Webster. It was too late, however, and Scott finally secured the nomination, alienating both Webster and Fillmore. Since the party was now effectively divided, Franklin Pierce, a Democrat won the election.
Four years later, President Pierce had his own problems. Though a Northerner, Pierce believed the abolitionist movement to be a danger to the nation and had supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, that would allow for the territory to be divided into states, but aggravated the argument about free and slave states to the point that the territory was a bloody battleground that foreshadowed the coming Civil War. Pierce didn’t seem to realize that he was unpopular with both parties and was shocked at the 1856 party convention when he came in second on the first ballot. James Buchanan won his party’s nomination primarily because he had been in Europe for several years and had neither any connection with “Bleeding Kansas” nor any direct ties to Pierce.
Though Pierce did not win his party’s nomination, he did manage to exit the White House without guaranteeing his party losing the election. Buchanan, a fellow Democrat won the election. This is the only time that a sitting president, denied his party’s nomination for reelection, did not insure a victory for the opposing party.
Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, had run for vice-president with Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1864 on the National Union Party Ticket, a deliberate move by Lincoln to try to unite the country. Upon Lincoln’s death, the newly sworn-in President, a Southerner, was so unpopular with both parties that though he desired to run for reelection, neither party nominated him. By the start of the 1868 campaign season, Johnson was so unpopular with damn near everyone that he had to tie a pork chop around his neck to play with his own dog.
The last sitting president to be denied his party’s nomination was Chester A. Arthur, who became president upon the assassination of James Garfield. President Arthur is one of the “forgotten” presidents, with few today remembering much about him. To his credit, he fostered several causes including civil rights and the introduction of the Civil Service system. These reforms effectively divided the Republican Party who gave the 1884 nomination to James Blaine. Blaine lost to Democrat Grover Cleveland—the first Democrat elected after the Civil War. According to James Blaine, the loss was due to Arthur’s refusal to campaign for him.
Though Arthur was the last president to be denied his party’s nomination for reelection, there is one last special case that needs to be mentioned. In 1908, as President Theodore Roosevelt left office, he supported his hand-picked replacement, William Taft. Roosevelt did everything possible to support Taft’s election and once it was secured, promptly went on safari in Africa. When he returned to America two years later, he was dismayed to see that President Taft had not handled several matters to his satisfaction. (In other words, Taft had fornicated skyward.) If it weren’t for the Secret Service, that elephant wouldn’t have been the only large overweight mammal Roosevelt shot.
In 1912, Roosevelt tried to take the Republican nomination away from Taft, but failed because Taft, as the head of the party, controlled the credentials committee for the delegation. Angry, Roosevelt founded his own political party, the Progressive Party (usually referred to as the Bull Moose Party). In the November election, Roosevelt beat Taft, but they had split the Republican votes, guaranteeing victory for Woodrow Wilson who only received 42% of the vote. If either Taft or Roosevelt had not run, Wilson would have most likely have lost the election.
If the 2024 election follows the track laid out above and if either Trump or Biden is denied his party’s nomination, it will probably divide that party, securing victory for the opposing party’s candidate. If Trump is denied the Republican nomination, he will probably try to form a third party, once again splitting the Republican vote. (I won’t even bother giving the details of how Ross Perot split the Republican vote in 1992).
One of the bad things about studying history is to see trends, understand them, and know there is not one damned thing you can do about them.
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