All 28 Presidents Who Served One Term, More or Less

On July 21, 2024, sitting U.S. President Joe Biden announced that he would abandon his reelection campaign and, by doing so, forfeit his chance at serving a second term in office. 

Biden’s decision is far from unique. Although many previous presidents have followed in the footsteps of twice-elected George Washington, holding onto the White House for a total of eight years, there is no shortage of statesmen who were elected to and/or served just a single term. Some, like Biden, made a conscious decision to give up their reelection bid, while others died before finishing their term, failed to win reelection, or left on their own accord.

Below, you’ll learn who they were and why they didn’t stick around as long as their presidential peers.

Presidents Who Died in Office Before Completing Their First Term

1. William Henry Harrison // 1841

Serving the shortest presidential term in U.S. history, the ninth commander-in-chief died exactly one month after his inauguration. Harrison’s health had been decline long before he was sworn in, and he spent most of his time in office in search of last-resort remedies for what historians believe was probably pneumonia.

2. Zachary Taylor // 1849-1850

Taylor was a career Army officer who won the White House by capitalizing on the reputation he earned as a general in the Mexican-American War. He was diagnosed with “cholera morbus,” likely acute gastroenteritis. After passing away at the age of 65, his body was encased in ice before being buried. 

3. James A. Garfield // 1881

Garfield’s first term in office ended with his death on September 19, 1881, less than three months after he was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, did not have a political motive. The mentally disturbed individual resolved to murder Garfield after the latter refused to name him consul of Austria, a post Guiteau was in no way qualified for. 

4. Warren G. Harding // 1921-1923

Warren Harding was in his suite at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel listening to his wife read an article from the Saturday Evening Post when he suddenly dropped dead on his bed. Although historians suspect that he died of a heart attack, no one knows because, as per his wife’s request, there was no autopsy on the body. 

5. John F. Kennedy // 1961-1963

Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald while being driven through Dallas, Texas, in a convertible. Arguably the most infamous presidential assassination in U.S. history, Kennedy was succeeded by his vice president, Lyndon Johnson.

Vice Presidents Who Completed Their Predecessor’s Term But Were Not Elected to a Four-Year Term

6. John Tyler // 1841-1845

John Tyler assumed office after the death of William Henry Harrison, becoming the first vice president in U.S. history to do so (and gaining the nickname His Accidency). In the years leading up to the Civil War, Tyler tried to broker a compromise between the seceding states and the Union, but joined the Confederacy when this proved unsuccessful. 

7. Millard Fillmore // 1850-1853

Fillmore, a member of the Whig Party, was sworn in as president after the death of Zachary Taylor. During his time in office, he worked to isolate the increasingly pro-Confederate John Tyler. Fillmore was not picked as his party's candidate in the 1852 election. He ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign as part of the Know Nothing Party in 1856 before disappearing from public view.

8. Andrew Johnson // 1865-1869

Johnson became president after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in his second term. A southern Democrat and unpopular leader, Johnson’s appointment as vice president was envisioned as an attempt to move towards post-Civil War unity between North and South. Johnson’s Reconstruction efforts angered both sides of the country, dissuading him from seeking election. 

9. Chester A. Arthur // 1881-1885

Arthur was sworn in after the death of James A. Garfield. He did not seek election due to complications from Bright’s disease, a kidney condition. Although the public was not aware of his illness, his symptoms prevented him from securing the Republican Party nomination, which ended up going to James G. Blaine.

10. Gerald R. Ford // 1974-1977

Ford assumed office after President Richard M. Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment following the Watergate scandal. Ford, who was appointed after the resignation of Nixon’s first vice president, Spiro Agnew, became the first and only person in U.S. history to become president without being elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. Ford lost the 1976 presidential election to Jimmy Carter, though.

Vice Presidents Who Completed Their Predecessor’s Term and Then Were Elected to a Four-Year Term

11. Theodore Roosevelt // 1901-1909

Roosevelt became president after the death of William McKinley, who was assassinated shortly after the start of his second term in office. Popular among Republicans and Democrats alike, especially for his conservation efforts, TR defeated Democratic nominee Alton Parker in 1904, securing an additional four years in the White House. He convinced his protégé, William Howard Taft, to run for president in the 1908 election—but then challenged Taft, the Republican candidate, in the 1912 election as the nominee of the Progressive/“Bull Moose” Party. Both Taft and Roosevelt lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

12. Calvin Coolidge // 1923-1929

Stepping into the Oval Office following the death of Warren G. Harding in 1923, Coolidge gained popularity for his role in punishing the perpetrators of the Teapot Dome scandal, in which the Interior Department leased federal oil reserves behind the federal government’s back. The former vice president then secured his electoral victory in 1924. 

13. Harry S. Truman // 1945-1953

Truman finished Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fourth term after the latter passed away in Georgia. Although Truman was not expected to remain in the White House—he was widely criticized for his domestic and foreign policies, including the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs—he ended up winning the 1948 presidential election by a hair’s breadth against Thomas Dewey. 

14. Lyndon B. Johnson // 1963-1969

After taking over the presidency in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson achieved an electoral victory of his own. The unanimous support he received from the Democratic Party contrasted with the fractured state of the Republicans, many of whom did not stand by their staunchly conservative nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. In 1968, Johnson declined to seek reelection, opening up the door for a revived Richard Nixon.

Presidents Who Failed to Win Reelection

15. John Adams // 1797-1801

Adams was elected president after serving as George Washington’s veep (and after Washington announced in his farewell address that he would not seek a third term). But Adams’s approval ratings dwindled as a result of signing the Alien and Sedition Acts, which limited Americans’ freedom of movement and speech. He lost his reelection bid to his own vice president and frenemy,Thomas Jefferson.

16. John Quincy Adams // 1825-1829

Adams’s reelection loss to Andrew Jackson is widely attributed to Adams being a “poor politician” whose ethics were more in line with the Founding Fathers than the new era of two-party politics. Adam attempted to rise above the “baneful weed of party strife” and advocated for federal power in an age when many of his peers, like Jackson, were campaigning for states’ rights.  

17. Martin Van Buren // 1837-1841

The only president who spoke English as a second language (his mother tongue was Dutch), Van Buren’s failure to secure reelection can be attributed to the changing nature of American politics. His opponent, William Henry Harrison, actively campaigned for office and painted the already unpopular Van Buren as a wealthy elite who, unlike himself, was woefully out of touch with the common man. 

18. Franklin Pierce // 1853-1857

Unable to agree on a presidential candidate, delegates at the 1852 Democratic National Convention selected the virtually unknown Pierce as a dark horse candidate—a strategy they would not repeat in 1856, despite Pierce actively seeking reelection. Delegates at that convention would put their faith in future one-termer James Buchanan instead. 

19. Benjamin Harrison // 1889-1893

After defeating Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland, Harrison’s approval ratings suffered from his implementation of high tariffs and federal spending, allowing Cleveland to win their rematch in 1892. Harrison returned to practicing law in Indianapolis, Indiana.

20. William Howard Taft // 1909-1913

Taft won the White House in 1908 after being groomed by Theodore Roosevelt as his successor. The election of 1912, however, saw the Republican Taft lose to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson, who also beat out Socialist Party nominee Eugene V. Debs and Roosevelt himself, who ran on behalf of his newly created Progressive/“Bull Moose” Party.

21. Herbert Hoover // 1929-1933

When Herbert Hoover became president in 1929, the economy was booming. By the time he left office, displaced Americans who had lost everything in the Great Depression were living in shantytowns dubbed “Hoovervilles.” Hoover lost the 1932 election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose New Deal initiative promised to mitigate the effects of the Depression that the Republican incumbent had failed to address.

22. Jimmy Carter // 1977-1981

Georgia-born President Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election to actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan—a loss commonly attributed to his inconsistent policy goals and an economic recession that led many voters to desire a change in leadership.

23. George H.W. Bush // 1989-1993

Although the senior President Bush enjoyed high approval ratings during the beginning of his term, his popularity had fallen sharply by the time the next election season revved up. Divisive Supreme Court appointments, failure to follow through on promises to cut taxes, and a national recession contributed to the victory of his opponent, Bill Clinton.

24. Donald Trump // 2017-2021

Trump lost his reelection bid to Barack Obama’s veep, Joe Biden, after a tumultuous four-year term that weakened the country’s democratic institutions and ended with a mob of his right-wing supporters storming the Capitol.

Presidents Who Chose Not to Run for Reelection After One Term

25. James K. Polk // 1845-1849

Although he was a popular and, by many historical accounts, successful president, Polk chose not to seek reelection because he felt he had achieved his primary policy goals in a single term, which included the acquisitions of California, New Mexico, and Oregon. He also attributed his decision to his deteriorating health. 

26. James Buchanan // 1857-1861

A northern Democrat with Southern values, Buchanan was initially elected in the hope that he might close the growing rift between free and slave states. He failed to contain the conflict and decided not to seek reelection, though, considering that he’s widely viewed as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, it’s unlikely he would have been able to retain the White House either way. 

27. Rutherford B. Hayes // 1877-1881

Hayes was named president when, after an election where none of the candidates managed to secure enough electoral votes to enter the White House, he was awarded 20 contested votes from Congress. Stepping into office on such unprecedented and controversial grounds, Hayes promised from the beginning that he’d serve only one term—a promise he kept. 

28. Joe Biden // 2021-2025

Biden chose to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election after his poor performance in a debate against Donald Trump left many high-profile Democrats—and voters—concerned about his ability to win. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the race.  

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