Special Poll
Former President Trump is projected to win a second, non-consecutive term starting in January.
This election marks a historic moment, as it’s the first in over 100 years where an ex-president is re-elected to office after a previous term.
The last president to serve two non-consecutive terms was Grover Cleveland, who held office from 1885 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897.
Unlike Cleveland, who could have run for a third term but chose not to, Trump is constitutionally barred from a third term due to the 22nd Amendment.
The 22nd Amendment, ratified over 50 years after Cleveland’s time, restricts any person from being elected president more than twice, or serving over two years of another person’s term and then running more than once.
The language of the 22nd Amendment does not make exceptions for non-consecutive terms.
The push to limit presidential terms came in 1947, largely in response to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unprecedented four consecutive terms.
FDR, the only president to win more than two terms, passed away shortly into his fourth term in 1945.
The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, nearly six years after FDR’s death, but it did not apply to then-President Harry Truman.
Truman, who served nearly eight years, ultimately chose not to run for another term in 1952, following the unofficial two-term tradition started by George Washington and upheld by Jefferson.
Truman later expressed support for repealing the 22nd Amendment, and since then, there have been multiple efforts to overturn it, though none have gained significant traction.
Congress has acknowledged that it may still be theoretically possible for a two-term president to serve again, based on interpretations of the 22nd and 12th Amendments.