Before Joe Biden, who was the last US president not to seek re-election?
President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection last month was the first time in more than half a century that a sitting U.S. president voluntarily stepped aside from seeking another term. The last time was in 1968 when President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would not accept his party’s nomination following a weak performance in the New Hampshire primary.
While other presidents didn’t run for another term, including Harry Truman, Calvin Coolidge, James Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford Hayes, and Theodore Roosevelt, to name a few, Biden is the only one who has left the race so close to the general election, as previously reported by Paste BN.
Which U.S. presidents decided not to run for a second term?
Along with Biden and Johnson, two other presidents abandoned a reelection effort: Harry Truman in 1952, who said he would not be running for another term after being upset in the New Hampshire primary, and John Tyler in 1844, who had become president after William Henry Harrison died.
Tyler, the first president to serve fewer than two terms but not be the party’s nominee in the next election, had views that didn’t quite match up with either party. He dropped out of his reelection bid as a third-party candidate and endorsed James Polk on the Democratic ticket.
Five presidents retired rather than seeking another term: Calvin Coolidge, Rutherford Hayes, James Buchanan, and Polk. Theodore Roosevelt also upheld his promise not to run for a third consecutive term in the 1908 race, but he regretted the decision. He later ran again in 1912 and lost to Woodrow Wilson.
Four presidents ran for another term but lost their renomination bid: Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and Chester Arthur. Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur were vice presidents who acceded to the presidency, while Pierce won his first election in 1852. But all struggled to maintain their party’s support the next time around - situations reminiscent of Biden’s, who faced calls from within his own party to step down.
Finally, some presidents, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, had already served two full terms and declined to serve a third one. They set the precedent for a two-term presidency, a tradition that later became law under the 22nd Amendment.
Despite dropping out just 107 days before the 2024 presidential election, Biden did leave time for Democrats to choose a new candidate: Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the presumptive nominee. The 2024 Democratic National Convention, where the delegates are expected to make the nomination official, kicks off in Chicago on August 19.