Trump's historic comeback only second in U.S. history

Nov. 7—Few politicians in American history have made comebacks as strong as President-elect Donald Trump, who will only be the second president in American history to reclaim the office after losing reelection.

Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris during the general election on Tuesday, winning both the popular vote and the electoral college.

"The other president, Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, won the national vote while losing the electoral college in 1888 and left office peacefully," Robert Speel, political science professor at Penn State's The Behrend College, said.

During the first year of Cleveland's second term, "the U.S. entered an economic depression, and Cleveland was very unpopular by the end of his term, leading to several decades of Republican national political dominance in the decades that followed," Speel said.

More recently, Richard Nixon made a comeback.

"He lost a presidential election to John F. Kennedy, in 1960, but then came back to win two elections later," Susquehanna University political science professor Nick Clark said.

"The last attempt at a political comeback by a defeated president was a very brief effort by Gerald Ford, who had lost reelection in 1976, to negotiate the possibility of being Ronald Reagan's running mate during the 1980 Republican National Convention," Speel said. "The plan fell through, and Ford returned to private life."

Other presidents have tried and failed where Trump and Cleveland succeeded, Speel said

Herbert Hoover "was unsuccessful in both 1936 and 1940 at persuading other Republicans to let him lead the party again after he lost in a landslide in 1932," Speel said.

In 1840, Democratic President Martin Van Buren lost reelection, Speel said.

"He attempted to be renominated by his party in 1844, but Democrats instead chose James Polk," Speel said.