Throughout the evening Tuesday, Fox News commentators made repeated references to the possibility that Donald Trump was going to pull off “the biggest comeback in American politics since Grover Cleveland,” which showed a fine awareness of history but probably left many viewers puzzled, since ol’ Grover is not exactly in the first tier of American presidents who shine brightly in our miseducated and distracted national historical memory.
Still, it is true that Donald Trump and Grover Cleveland are now the only two presidents in American history to have been reelected president after losing their first bid for reelection. And contrary to the Fox talking heads, Trump’s comeback is even more comprehensive and astonishing than that of his nineteenth-century counterpart.
As “Rating America’s Presidents” explains, in Grover Cleveland’s day, the biggest — and only — swing state was New York. In 1880, 1884, and 1888, if New York had gone for the other candidate, it would have changed the outcome of the election. 21,000 New York votes made the Republican James A. Garfield president in 1880 instead of the Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, and in 1884, Cleveland was elected president for the first time because he won New York by the nail-biting margin of 1,149 votes over James G. Blaine, “the continental liar from the state of Maine.” The powerbrokers of the day were well aware of New York’s power: Cleveland was the Democrats’ fourth presidential candidate from New York in five elections.
When Cleveland was running for reelection in 1888 against the Republican Benjamin Harrison, New York once again effectively chose the president, swinging back to the Republicans by a margin of just over 14,000 votes and sweeping Grover and his glamorous young bride Frances (the proto-Melania Trump), whom Cleveland had married in the White House, back to private life.
Still, Cleveland won the popular vote and remained the leader of the Democrat party. Harrison was not a popular or particularly successful president, and when Cleveland challenged him to a rematch in 1892, he looked stronger than he had in 1888. As in 2024, the economy was a big issue. The Republican platform reaffirmed the party’s commitment to “the American doctrine of protectionism” and stated that “the prosperous condition of our country” was due to their “wise revenue legislation.” The Democrats countered this America-first message by charging in their own platform that “Republican protection” was “a fraud, a robbery, of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few.”
Cleveland won by a comfortable margin and became the only president to return to the White House after leaving it — until Jan. 20, 2025, that is, barring an act of God or some nefarious act of Democrat chicanery. Cleveland did indeed pull off a remarkable comeback, but Donald Trump’s was much greater and more impressive.
Cleveland, after all, won the popular vote when he lost his first reelection bid in 1888. The official results of the 2020 election look increasingly improbable in light of 2024 — where did Biden’s 81 million votes go? Nevertheless, according to the tally that we all must accept on pain of being called “election deniers” and marginalized accordingly, Trump lost the popular vote by seven million votes in 2020, yet stormed back and won it in 2024, becoming the first Republican to win it since George W. Bush did so in 2004.
Even more importantly, Trump pulled out this victory while under a cloud that was unprecedented in American history. Grover Cleveland never had to deal with his opposition framing him on bogus charges and trying to sideline his candidacy not on the basis of the issues, but because he was a “convicted felon.” Grover likewise never had to face a gaggle of self-described news outlets that were really nothing more than propaganda arms for his opponent.
When he lost his race for California governor in 1962, two years after losing the presidency by a razor-thin margin, an embittered Richard Nixon told the gleeful press corps: “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
He pulled off a splendid comeback of his own by being elected president in 1968, but Richard Nixon, as hated as he was, was never kicked around as much as Donald Trump has been. The 2024 election coverage was the most biased in history, as most establishment outlets presented Americans with the claim that they faced a choice between Kamala Harris and Adolf Hitler.
Related: Trump Victory Media Roundup: Establishment Goes Through the Stages of Grief
Grover Cleveland never had to face anything close to defamation of that magnitude. Hitler wasn’t even born until Cleveland had already lost his attempt at reelection and Benjamin Harrison had been president for six weeks. Because he overcame so many attempts to destroy his career and reputation, and even end his life, Trump’s 2024 victory is unparalleled in American history and is without any exaggeration one of the most remarkable events in the history of any country.
The left will, of course, keep on trying to destroy him. But the election results demonstrate that they’re facing a far more formidable foe than they’re prepared to admit even on Wednesday morning, as they glumly survey the smoking ruins of Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.
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