Has a president ever won two non-consecutive elections to the White House

Should Donald Trump win back the White House on Nov. 5, he would not be the first former president to be elevated to a non-consecutive second term.

That honor belongs to New Jersey’s own Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th presidents of the United States.

Cleveland’s first presidential election and the Maria Halpin scandal

Trump and Cleveland share some commonalities besides running for the White House in three consecutive cycles.

Both men have been plagued by accusations of sexual abuse, up to and including rape.

During the 1884 presidential campaign, Cleveland—then the Democratic governor of New York— was accused by a garment industry supervisor from Buffalo named Maria Halpin of fathering her child a decade earlier—and used his political influence to have Halpin committed to a psychiatric ward while the child was adopted by another family.

“In an 1874 statement,” the Chicago Tribune wrote at the time, according to Smithsonian Magazine, “Halpin strongly implied that Cleveland’s entry into her room and the incident that occurred there was not consensual—he was forceful and violent, she claimed, and promised later to destroy her if she went to the authorities.”

Cleveland’s campaign acknowledged that he and Halpin had become “illicitly acquainted,” but the governor left the paternity of Halpin’s child — named Oscar Folsom Cleveland — an open question, claiming that any of the prominent Buffalo businessmen in his circle (who were all married) could have given birth to the boy.

Halpin argued, “There is not and never has been any doubt as to the paternity of our child, and any attempt by Grover Cleveland or his friends to connect the name of Oscar Folsom or anyone else with the boy’s name for that purpose is simply infamous and false.”

However, Cleveland’s downplaying of the encounter as a hapless youthful liaison—despite being in his mid-30s at the time—won the day, and he defeated Republican Sen. James Blaine of Maine in the November election to become the first Democrat to win. The White House since the Civil War.

Cleveland’s first period and loss

Cleveland was tough on economic policy, opposing government handouts and special services—even vetoing a bill that would have given drought-stricken Texas farmers $10,000 in federal funds (about $325,000 in today’s money) to buy seed.

But it was his veto of extending pensions to Civil War veterans and his disdain for workers’ rights that contributed most to his failed re-election bid.

Cleveland lost the 1888 presidential election to Republican former Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, becoming the only incumbent to date to win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College.

Grover Cleveland’s re-election and second term

Cleveland got his revenge four years later, defeating Harrison in the first contest of major-party nominees who had served as president.

The 24th president’s term was marked by the economic panic of 1893 and related labor unrest. Although Cleveland could have sought a third term in 1896, he chose not to contest the Democratic nomination.

After the election that year of Republican William McKinley of Ohio, no Democrat won the presidency until Woodrow Wilson’s victory in 1912.

Presidents who have tried to win a non-consecutive term but failed

Should Trump lose his comeback campaign, he would have more company. Former presidents Martin Van Buren (1848), Millard Fillmore (1856), Ulysses S. Grant (1880), and Teddy Roosevelt (1912) all lost their attempts to return to the presidency after a gap of at least four years.

While Grant and Roosevelt tried to win third terms in the Oval Office, Trump will have no such luck should he emerge victorious on Tuesday.

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1951, states that no one can be elected president more than twice.