[S]ince Grover Cleveland in 1896, only Jimmy Carter has seen his party not hold the White House for at least a second consecutive term.

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In 2016, Donald Trump delivered one of the most shocking electoral upsets in presidential history over Hillary Clinton.  

Clinton’s polling lead had remained so comfortable, so consistent and across so many swing states that an overconfident president Barack Obama prematurely cautioned Americans against anticipated claims of electoral foul play from Trump.  “I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining,” Obama lectured, “and go try to make his case to get votes.”  Supremely assured of a Clinton win, Obama added, “I have never seen in my lifetime, or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place.”  

From the rubble of their shocking electoral catastrophe, of course, Obama and his soulmates became the ones “trying to discredit the elections” over the ensuing four years.    

In retrospect, however, perhaps Trump’s win shouldn’t have come as such a shock.  A nearly ironclad historical rule pointed toward it all along.  

Indeed, a Hillary Clinton victory would’ve achieved something that only Ronald Reagan was able to accomplish since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  

Specifically, only once since World War II – in 1988 – have Americans elected one party to a third consecutive White House term.  And only once – in 1980 – have Americans limited a party to just one White House term.  Sixteen times since 1948, a party has retained the White House via reelection to at least a second consecutive term, as voters tend to elect a presidential party for two terms, then shift power to the other party for two terms, before going back again.  

Democrat Harry Truman won reelection in the famous 1948 upset over Thomas Dewey, but then Republican Dwight Eisenhower won in 1952 and again in 1956.  Voters in turn elected Democrat John F. Kennedy in the nail-biter 1960 election over Richard Nixon, and retained his successor, Lyndon Johnson, in the 1964 landslide.  Then, voters elected Republican Richard Nixon in 1968, and reelected him by a record margin in 1972.  In the wake of Watergate, voters then elected Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.  

So incompetent was Carter, however, that he offers the sole instance of a party retaining the White House for just one term since Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1896.  

In 1980, voters overwhelmingly elected supposed radical Republican Ronald Reagan, who won reelection by a new record margin in 1984.  Reagan was so successful, and so beloved, that his party won a third consecutive term in 1988 for the first time since the FDR and Truman period.  No other post-World War II sitting president – Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush or Obama – matched Reagan’s greatness in that regard.  

After finally returning Democrats to power in 1992, Americans reelected Bill Clinton in 1996.  In 2000, Republicans recaptured the White House with George W. Bush, who won reelection in 2004.  Americans’ electoral habit continued with the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and his reelection in 2012.  

It bears emphasis that Obama became the only president in U.S. history to be reelected with a lower popular vote and electoral college total than his initial election.  So much for his supposed popularity and political prowess.  

Then 2016 brought Trump’s upset win, which simply continued American voters’ habit of limiting political parties to two consecutive terms before restoring the former party to power.  

Accordingly, a Clinton victory in 2016 would have made Obama the only president other than Reagan since World War II to see his party win a third consecutive term.  And with a tip of the hat to former Senator and unsuccessful 1988 vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen (D – Texas), Barack Obama was certainly no Ronald Reagan.  

As for 2020, that same historical rule again suggests good times ahead for President Trump in next month’s election.  As noted above, since Grover Cleveland in 1896, only Jimmy Carter has seen his party not hold the White House for at least a second consecutive term.  

Is President Trump another Jimmy Carter?  Although the global coronavirus pandemic has thrown our electoral calculus into chaos, the two appear far more different than alike.  

Whereas Carter was humiliated by Iran for the final two years of his tenure, President Trump has punished Iran and facilitated an unprecedented wave of peace between Israel and its former adversaries.  Trump has also vanquished ISIS, after its years of growth under the Obama/Biden administration.  And whereas Ronald Reagan doomed Carter during their 1980 debate by asking viewers whether they were better off that night than four years earlier, today Gallup reports an astonishing 56% reporting that they are indeed better off than they were four years ago – despite the coronavirus and its economic fallout.  That’s a higher number than under Obama in 2012, Bush in 2004, Clinton in 1996 or even Reagan in 1984, when each won reelection.  

Accordingly, overwhelming electoral trends aren’t the only thing in President Trump’s favor today.  History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it favored Trump in 2016, and does again this year.