In the latest example of a new cruel streak in modern politics, several politicians are openly calling for blocking aid to California in the wake of the deadly wildfires. It’s wrong for several reasons.

First, Californians contributed to that aid and are among the biggest givers in Federal income taxes. Second, this is being suggested by politicians in states which pay on average far less of the share in income taxes. Third, those suggesting stopping or dangling aid will demand unconditional assistance when they need help, if history is any guide. Finally, it’s hard to find this to be any part of our American or Christian heritage.

According to Merideth Lee Hill of Politico, “[House Speaker] Johnson told reporters, “we’ll see where it goes,” acknowledging that he, personally, supported putting “conditions” on California wildfire aid. “That’s my personal view,” he said.”

Another Congressman, this one from Ohio, said as much about California aid according to Amber Baker with WTRF: “If they want the money, then there should be consequences, requiring them to change their policies.” An Alabama politician concurred.

It reminded me of two years ago when a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, producing a terrible plume of dangerous smoke. Did Congress withhold aid until Ohio agreed to better regulate their trains for having more safety personnel aboard (instead of cutting them) or requiring better breaking systems? Such policies should be implemented, but those poor residents should not have been held hostage to a political battle. In fact, the IRS made those relief checks non-taxable, even though the district voted over 70% for Trump in 2020. How you voted in the last election shouldn’t determine whether you get aid or not, right?

I checked the National Taxpayers Union Foundation analysis of who pays when it come to taxes. California pays the most in raw numbers, but the state ranks fifth in average Federal Income Tax paid per person. Ohio ranks 39th. Louisiana ranks 45th. Alabama is 46th on average.

According to SmartAsset.com, California ranks 41st for being dependent upon the Federal Government, one of the ten states least dependent upon the U.S. Government. Louisiana is eighth for being the most dependent upon Federal Government aid. Alabama is the ninth most dependent state on government money.

Imagine if Californians withheld aid to Louisiana or Alabama after a Category 5 hurricane.

Now I’m sure the residents of these states are just as likely to donate to disaster relief causes. Their representatives could learn from their constituents.

Blocking aid to another state in need is a relatively new ugly streak in American politics. When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey, a number in Congress voted against aid, even though SmartAsset.com shows “For every $6.28 New Jersey forks over to the federal government, it receives $1 back.” Well, some of the same politicians who said nay to New Jersey shamelessly asked for aid just a few years later when tornados and hurricanes hit their states. New York and New Jersey politicians thankfully did not play the same “tit-for-tat” game for Texas for Hurricane Harvey.

An iconic American image involves people passing water buckets to help a neighbor in need of putting out a home fire. None are trying to slap “conditions” on the help or blocking firefighting help in exchange for some quid-pro-quo. That’s because it’s just not the American spirit. Once people are cared for, we can debate policy, without holding hostage that aid to those in need.

The New Republic recently blasted an ex-GOP candidate and co-leader of that “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) outfit with the headline “Vivek Ramaswamy Dragged After Wild Rant On How American Workers Suck,” by Malcolm Ferguson. Ramaswamy is getting crushed by liberals and conservatives alike for his caustic comments.

While I think some of what Ramaswamy tweeted is right, I disagree with the notion that American workers suck. What Vivek needs to realize is that America is a little more pro-nerd than he thinks, and that some of our nerds do some of what he says we need less of.

This started when Ramaswamy took to Twitter to explain why he thinks tech companies prefer foreign-born workers over Americans. BTW, Elon Musk says we need more immigrant workers.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from ]Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote in a lengthy post on X,” as reported by Ferguson, as well as plenty of other outlets.

“More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’…..A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness. That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence,” he notes in Ferguson’s story (wonder what he means by alternative hiring practices).

Here’s where I agree with Ramaswamy. We should value math Olympiad champs, valedictorians, math tutoring, weekend science competition books, creating, extracurriculars, achievement, excellence, nerdiness, and hard work. We could also be a little more pro-teacher.

Here’s where I think Vivek could do better. We do value nerd culture. And it also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t value prom queens, jocks, cartoons, TV, and being chill sometimes.

In our political science program, we have Homecoming Queens and Kings, as well as jocks (male and female), who love crunching numbers. They work statistics into papers even when you don’t require it. One softball player got her engineering degree and then double-majored in political science. Our college gave the biggest science nerd I’ve ever taught in political science a top alumni award. She is currently in Antarctica installing a comm link, while working on her Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering. We have football-playing Ph.Ds in political science and math, as well as basketball players with public health degrees, with all races and genders included among them. These aren’t exceptions among those I teach. These are my students!

Ramaswamy’s pop culture examples seem to be frozen in the amber of the era of Jurassic Park (which came out in 1993). Even non-science nerds today are totally into “Big Bang Theory,” “Young Sheldon,” “Star Trek,” “Oppenheimer,” “Mythbusters,” “Doctor Who,” and their reruns. They know who Neil DeGrasse Tyson and “Bill Nye The Science Guy” are. Science is cool in the USA, and it’s been that way going back to the days of Benjamin Franklin.

As my mum always says, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Vivek could mend fences with the MAGA folks as well as liberals. He should realize that while he’s right that we can always use more nerds, some American nerds can do the cool kid things too. The U.S. shows more love to the wonderful science geeks than he realizes, especially when we respect the hard work our teachers do to make our students great. If he and other political elites who lecture Americans on education and parenting want more nerds, they need to learn that in the USA, you don’t have to force a kid to choose to be a nerd or be a non-nerd! Our students can do both.

NOW READ: How George Orwell was right — and Steve Jobs was wrong

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.

Throughout the post-World War II era, the revelation that a party nominee allegedly expressed admiration for generals from Nazi Germany for their loyalty might have been an epic October Surprise. But for many voters and the media, it’s sadly “no big deal,” or just a little mistake, when such evidence would have destroyed the electability of any other candidate.

In the Charlie Brown comics and cartoons, the normally sensible Linus Van Pelt annually promises that “The Great Pumpkin” will arise on Halloween and give out presents. But the event never happens. It’s similar to “the October Surprise,” a game-changing electoral event promised by the media, but rarely emerges or delivers a victory.

The Birth of the October Surprise

The whole thing got its start from an allegation that someone from the Reagan campaign team met with representatives of the Iranian hostage takers, to convince them not to release the American embassy workers in exchange for military equipment to prevent President Jimmy Carter from securing their freedom and rebounding in the polls. The book October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan by Gary Sick, came out in November of 1991.

People debated Sick’s assertions, and whether Reagan or Bush took part in discussions. But what was unmistakable is that the term “October Surprise” was born, as well as the media obsession with uncovering these late-breaking campaign events that could alter an election in favor of a candidate.

There were no documented cases of October Surprises in 1984, 1988 or 1996. No lead changes or late-breaking stories exist for these contests. But others have tried to make the case for October Surprises.

So-Called October Surprises That Didn’t Swing Elections, Or Didn’t Occur In October

David Greenberg of Rutgers, a professor of history and journalism and media studies and an expert on American political and cultural history, contends “In October 1992, former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. George Bush Sr. was already behind in the polls, but this was seen as one more blow to his bid for a second term.” Given the lack of a direct connection of this story to Bush, and the fact that President Bush was actually gaining in the polls during this time, according to Gallup, it does not resemble any “October Surprise.”

In 2000, on November 3, word leaked out that George W. Bush had a drunk driving offense dating back to 1976. His rival, Al Gore, chose not to publicize it, and it appeared to have no effect on the election, even one as close as the 2000 election. As The BBC Magazine revealed “And the day before the election, polls showed as many as eight out of 10 Americans felt the long-ago trouble with the law was irrelevant to the campaign.” It also does not seem to qualify as an October Surprise.

Many assert that the Osama Bin-Laden video released near the end of October was the “October Surprise” that swung the election to President George W. Bush. Senator John Kerry’s speechwriter Robert Shrum thinks as much. A Newsweek Magazine article reports “Shrum believes that bin Laden was the deciding factor in handing the 2004 election to Bush. In addition to knocking the increasingly bad news from the Iraq War off the front pages in the final days of the race, bin Laden reminded voters about the terror threat the U.S. still faced three years after the 9/11 attacks—a threat that Bush was seen as better at handling.” Newsweek also notes that Bush felt the video helped him win too. As The Guardian claims, the first poll released after the video showed Bush with a big six-point lead.

There’s one problem with this story. The Bin-Laden video didn’t help Bush. The first poll that came out after the video was released was taken almost entirely before the public even knew about the video, as I document in my article for the Homeland Security Affairs journal. In fact, the Bin-Laden video actually moved the election slightly in favor of Kerry, who lost by a closer margin than six points.

Those who claim that the Stock Market meltdown was the October Surprise of 2008 may not remember that Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008. The race in the polls was close at the time, but it is not clear whether or not Obama’s growth in the polls was due to the collapse (on Bush’s watch) or McCain’s call to suspend the campaign and the first presidential debate.

Supporters of there being a 2012 election October Surprise can’t agree on whether it was the secret recording of Mitt Romney or Hurricane Sandy. That Romney recording, claiming that 47% are dependent upon the government (statements that are far tamer than anything Donald Trump has said at a rally) took place in May, were found online and reported on September 17, 2012, well before October. President Obama’s lead in surveys was larger before the tape was released than it was after the tape was released in September.

As for Hurricane Sandy, it made landfall on October 29, 2012. The race was neck-and-neck before the hurricane and was the same afterwards. And no, Romney continued to campaign during the hurricane after it. In fact, he showed up to do public relations hurricane help during that time, claiming states should be in charge of hurricane response, which didn’t endear himself to voters recognizing that the size and scope of the disaster exceeded what a state could do.

For those who claim the 2020 election was decided by the COVID-19 pandemic, they might be right. They might also remember that the virus came to America in the Spring of 2020, and not in October. Trump catching COVID-19 late in October didn’t seem to alter the race, as the polls tightened during that time.

The Lone October Surprise: The 2016 Election

The Gary Sick book isn’t the only one with the October Surprise title. Devlin Barrett wrote the book October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election, which came out in September of 2020. “An already tightening race saw one seismic correction: it came in October when the FBI launched an investigation into the Clinton staff's use of a private server for their emails. Clinton fell 3-4 percent in the polls instantly, and her campaign never had time to rebut the investigation or rebuild her momentum so close to election day. The FBI cost her the race,” a book summary contends.

The 2016 election is probably the closest thing we have to a verifiable October Surprise though it is worth noting that the race was relatively close before the release of the FBI investigation details and Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote.

And that alleged revelation from General John Kelly about Trump liking having loyal generals like those from Nazi Germany is likely to have as much of an impact as Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” tape in 2016. It might have been an October Surprise for any other candidate, except Trump, whose behavior has been excused by so many people and journalists.

In conclusion, looking for an “October Surprise,” or planning for one, appears to be a fruitless exercise. Elections are decided by various factors occurring throughout the campaign season, not one last-minute cataclysmic event. Those covering races should report on the candidate positions and how they might impact voters, instead of looking for something as likely to occur as “The Great Pumpkin” from Charles Schultz’s cartoon strip.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.

Growing up in Texas, we were treated to stories of colorful political characters. Few could top John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, who once pronounced that the vice-president position “is not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Some say Garner said worse.)

That seems to be the opinion of more than a few pundits and political scientists. National Public Radio, The Economist and Politico have all run articles asserting how little impact a vice presidential pick makes on the ultimate outcome of a presidential election.

I take a different approach, comparing vice presidential picks’ performance in their states to how the party did in that state four years earlier.

Vice presidential picks: a recent history

To test their hypothesis, I analyzed how a party’s presidential ticket performed in the vice president nominees’ state in a given election year. Then I compared it to how the party’s ticket did in that state four years earlier.

It turns out that more often than not, a vice presidential candidate running as vice president for the first time helps you perform better in his or her state than four years earlier when that VP candidate wasn’t on the ticket.

For example, did Mike Pence help Donald Trump’s performance in Indiana during 2016 compared to how Republicans did in 2012? This case matters, given that Democrats won Indiana in 2008.

By the same token, did Democrats do better in Virginia with Sen. Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016 than Democrats did in the same state during 2012?

In these most recent 17 cases, where the vice presidential nominee isn’t already a vice president running for reelection — such as Joe Biden in 2012 — the vice presidential candidate boosted the party ticket 10 times in his or her home state. On seven occasions, the VP candidate did not do as well for his or her party as the party did four years ago in the state.

There were three cases where the vice presidential candidate boost or drag on the ticket was less than a percentage point. Taking those three out means that on nine occasions, the vice presidential candidate improved the ticket in his or her state. In five cases, the VP candidate did not help the ticket in the state he or she is from.

The average boost a vice presidential candidate gets a ticket in his or her own state is 4.4 percentage points, when considering all 17 cases.

That difference definitely matters in 2024.

As recently as last month, some polls put Trump ahead of Biden in Minnesota, which Biden had won by about 7 percentage points in 2020.

With Biden off the ticket, the advantage has swung back toward Democrats, but Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s addition to the ticket Tuesday will all but ensure that Minnesota — a must-win for Kamala Harris’ presidential chances — stays blue.

In three cases (1976 Democrats, 1980 Republicans and 1992 Democrats), a vice presidential candidate helped flip a state. In 2016, Kaine boosted the Democrats in his swing state of Virginia in a tight election — Clinton won Virginia, even if she lost the election.

One should also consider the cases where a presidential candidate would have done much better, possibly winning the overall election, with a better vice presidential selection.

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Imagine President Gerald Ford keeping Vice President Nelson Rockefeller — and winning New York in 1976. It could have meant the difference in Ford defeating Democrat Jimmy Carter and winning his own four-year term after assuming the presidency from disgraced Richard Nixon. Instead, Carter narrowly won New York — and the election.

It’s also hard to imagine Democrat Al Gore losing Florida with the highly popular Sunshine State politician Bob Graham — a senator and governor — in 2000. Instead, he picked Connecticut's Joe Lieberman.

Republicans would have almost certainly fared a bit better against Democrat Barack Obama with a ticket of John McCain and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania in 2008, instead of McCain and then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) might have helped Mitt Romney in 2012, at least in Ohio.

Still need convincing?

Many others in the media and academia have challenged the idea that vice presidential picks matter.

The Economist takes issue with the notion that vice presidential nominee Lyndon B. Johnson delivered the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy, who edged out Nixon in one of the nation’s closest elections in history.

And they might be right, given that the only states that voted for Democrat Adlai Stevenson II in 1952 and 1956 were from the South. Yet Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican, did win Johnson’s home state of Texas in both elections, and Kennedy captured Texas in 1960.

In a recent interview with A Martínez from National Public Radio, professor Kyle Kopko at Elizabethtown College takes issue with the idea that a VP candidate can deliver an election:

MARTÍNEZ: All right. So if the Harris campaign is thinking about picking a VP candidate to help them carry one of November's swing states, what is your message to them? Kyle, let's start with you there.

KOPKO: Well, first of all, it's probably not going to happen. Whenever we estimate a number of statistical models dating back decades, it's pretty rare that we find a vice presidential candidate that can deliver a battleground state. And even if they could, then it really has to be the decisive state in the Electoral College really to make a difference. So you can think about this as lightning needing to strike ever just right for it to count in the presidential election.

In a Politico article two elections ago, Kopko and Christopher Devine go into more detail about their model.

They look at state-level election returns from 1884-2012. They also delve in public opinion polls from 1952-2008 to see how much a vice-presidential candidate means for their home state.

Here are their findings: “While presidential candidates typically enjoy a home-state advantage (approximately 3 points to 7 points), vice presidential candidates generally do not. In each of the three analyses described above, a presidential ticket performs no better in the vice-presidential candidate’s home state than we would expect otherwise. Statistically speaking, the effect is zero.”

It's not that Kopko and Devine are wrong, but they are looking at eras with many blowout elections.

Think of Republican victories from 1896-1908 (William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt), 1920-1928 (Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge), and 1952-1956 (Eisenhower), or Democratic dominance from 1932-1944 (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

It wouldn’t have mattered if you put Superman on the ticket for the losing side, even with the X-ray vision.

But in more recent years, with 24-hour media and social media coverage, we learn a lot more about Palin, Pence, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden than America ever heard about Thomas Marshall, Thomas Hendricks, Levi P. Morton or Allen G. Thurman in those days.

Legacy of Charles not-quite-in-charge

But in more recent years, from 1976-2020, one could say that it’s a whole new ballgame for vice presidential picks.

And the selections of J. D. Vance of Ohio and Walz of Minnesota are likely to have a much bigger impact than Charles Fairbanks, Charles G. Dawes, Charles Curtis, Charles W. Bryan and Charles L. McNary (all vice presidential picks between 1904-1940) ever did.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.

As we celebrated Juneteenth last week, a political argument is brewing about the legacy of the Jim Crow era.

It’s important, generally, to provide greater scrutiny of that era, lest we repeat, or even in some cases maintain, the legacy of that time frame in America.

But Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) ignited an acute firestorm of opposition and support at a June political event.

NBC reported that Donalds, a Trump campaign surrogate and potential vice presidential short-lister, “suggested that by embracing Democrats, circumstances have worsened for Black people. He pointed to programs enacted by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s that included expanding federal food stamps, housing, welfare and Medicaid for low-income Americans.

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“‘You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively,’ Donalds told the audience Tuesday.”

Critics listed a myriad of horrors from the Jim Crow era, from KKK violence to curtailed voting rights to unconstitutional discrimination. Donalds defended himself, saying his remarks were only limited to Black families.

I researched whether Black people really “voted conservatively” during the Jim Crow era.

Bottom line: Donalds’ assertion is not supported by the evidence.

As Daphney Douglas at Salve Regina University discovered in her thesis, African Americans overwhelmingly voted for Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936, well before the 1960s. Proquest found that 71 percent of African Americans voted Democratic in that election, according to news reports.

Douglas lists the actions that Republican Herbert Hoover engaged in that drove African Americans from the Republican Party, such as the Supreme Court nomination of John Parker.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act . (FDR Library Digital Collection.)

African Americans tended to vote for Republicans before Hoover on the basis of civil rights issues typically against the conservative Democrats who pushed for segregation.

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But for Northern liberal Democrats, African American voters clearly felt differently.

Donalds is also mistaken about the source of African American poverty. Research by scholars at the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies in 2022 found that “although Black wealth growth outpaced that of white Americans’ between 1870 and 1930, the rate of convergence in these years lags far behind what would be expected had the two groups enjoyed equal conditions for wealth accumulation. Indeed, the historical record is rife with instances of expropriation of Black wealth, exclusion of Black Americans from the political process, and legally sanctioned segregation and discrimination in land, labor, and capital markets. All of these factors likely contributed to sluggish convergence over this period.”

Moreover, the programs Donalds blames for African American poverty aren’t responsible for that.

The Griswold Center scholars found: “During the 1960s through the 1980s, convergence regains speed, exceeding what would be predicted by our equal-conditions benchmark. The dismantling of Jim Crow through Black activism and civil rights legislation, expansions of the social safety net, and improved labor standards during this period may have boosted wealth-accumulating conditions for Black Americans.

Although the wealth gap remained sizable in these decades, it remained on track to converge. From today’s vantage point, however, these gains were short-lived. Starting in the 1980s, we document a widening of the racial gap in capital gains as well as a complete stalling of income convergence. These forces have caused the wealth gap to leave the convergence path altogether and to start increasing again.”

The economic numbers show that problems emerged when the beneficial policies of the 1960s were rolled back in the 1980s.

I agree with Donalds in his criticism of Florida education standards, which insist that there were “benefits” of slavery.

But he and I disagree about the legacy of Jim Crow. Black families were not better off economically during that dark time. The policies of the 1960s closed the racial gap in earnings but were rolled back in the 1980s. And African American support of Democrats began decades earlier than Donalds claims.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.

Grover Cleveland is the historical standard among American presidents who lose or leave office then seek to regain it. The reason is simple: he achieved his goal.

Cleveland, however, is hardly the only commander-in-chief who tried to win back what was lost. The difference is that the historical record for ex-presidents trying for a comeback is pretty terrible.

And there are some Democrats who, toward the end of Cleveland’s second term in the late 1880s, wished Uncle Jumbo had stayed retired from politics — a cautionary tale for former President Donald Trump and his Republicans.

In the waning days of the Trump Administration, many Americans learned that the then-president wanted to create a “Garden of American Heroes,” replete with 244 statues of a curious variety of figures. They ranged from Christopher Columbus to Hannah Arendt to Muhammad Ali to Barry Goldwater.

Among these proposed statue subjects: Cleveland, the only man to win, then lose then win (again) the White House. Perhaps Trump hoped to channel Cleveland and become the second man to repeat this presidential accomplishment.

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If so, Trump should read up on American presidential history.

The first president to be voted out — and then try to reclaim the Oval Office — was Martin Van Buren of the Democratic Party. In 1840, he was badly thumped by William Henry Harrison, a member of the Whig Party, after a single term by an Electoral College vote of 234-60. (Whigs also won majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, thanks to the disastrous Panic of 1837.)

Van Buren attempted a comeback in the 1844 nomination battle, where he lost out to James K. Polk. When Lewis Cass won the Democratic nomination in 1848, Van Buren helped form an odd coalition of anti-slavery Democrats, Whigs and the Liberty Party.

Known as the “Free Soil Party,” they got more votes than any other third party to that date but only managed 10.1 percent of the popular vote in the 1848 election and no Electoral College votes. This officially ended the presidential aspirations of Van Buren, who’d go on to endorse presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan — widely held by historians to be two of the nation’s worst presidents — during the following two election cycles.

Another president who fared poorly in his presidency and tried for a comeback was Millard Fillmore.

Taking over for President Zachary Taylor, a Whig who died in 1850, Fillmore was not brought back in 1852 by the Whigs, despite showing some interest in running for reelection.

His nativist views led the American Party to nominate him in 1856, though this anti-immigrant third party was better known as the “Know Nothing” Party. Fillmore managed only eight Electoral College votes in the 1856 election, taking Maryland.

He finished third behind the new Republican Party’s nominee as well as the winner: Buchanan, a Democrat. Fillmore at least fared better than Van Buren, garnering 21.5 percent of the popular vote. But when you finish third in a three-way race, it’s not a good result.

Then there’s Teddy Roosevelt. After leaving Washington, D.C., in 1908, after more than seven years as president, Roosevelt became dismayed with President William Howard Taft’s inaction on progressive policies and occasional nods toward the conservative faction of the Republican Party.

Having lost the GOP nomination to Taft in 1912, Roosevelt sought to run for president on the Progressive Party ticket — you’ll likely know this party as the “Bull Moose” Party. Though Roosevelt pulled off a rare feat as a third-party candidate who earned second place, his 88 Electoral College votes (with eight for Taft) finished well behind Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s 435 Electoral College votes in the 1912 election. Roosevelt did get 27.4 percent of the popular vote, ahead of Taft’s 23.2 percent, but well behind Wilson’s total of 41.8 percent.

Two other cases are also worth noting.

In 1880, Ulysses S. Grant sought a third presidential term, four years after voluntarily stepping down after the second of his two previous terms — and decades before a constitutional amendment prohibited presidents from serving three or more of their own terms. But Grant’s Republican Party had lost interest in his politics and instead nominated James A. Garfield, who won the White House but died short of seven months into his term, the victim of an assassin’s bullet.

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Herbert Hoover’s flaccid attempt to win back the White House in 1936 landed stillborn at that year’s Republican National Convention, when he received precisely zero votes despite delivering a rousing speech. Hoover backed that year’s nominee, Kansas Gov. Alf Landon, who President Franklin D. Roosevelt obliterated at the polls that November.

Hoover again found himself in the nomination mix for 1940, but only received a handful of votes across Republican National Convention delegates’ several ballots and became an also-ran behind Wendell Wilkie. (Roosevelt shellacked him, too, come November 1940.)

As noted earlier, Cleveland avenged his surprise loss to Republican Benjamin Harrison four years earlier, with a comeback, and winning the 1892 election. But Cleveland’s second term proved disastrous, thanks largely to the Panic of 1893 and the harsh response to the Pullman Strike that alienated him from many in his Democratic Party. He wasn’t even considered for another term after four years, and his party went on to lose in 1896, 1900, 1904, and 1908; all defeats were by wide margins.

In the table, you can see that despite the name recognition and purported experience with the Executive Branch, few of the ex-presidents performed well in their comeback tours.

The average former president trying to regain old glory earned barely a quarter of the popular vote, and less than 100 Electoral College votes. Only Roosevelt was considered to have had a strong presidential term in office. And these losses in presidential runs don’t even cover the defeats in presidential party nominations suffered by Van Buren in 1844 and Roosevelt in 1912.

That makes Cleveland’s victory all the more improbable, though his awful second term had most Democratic supporters at the time wishing he had stayed retired by the voters in 1888.

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John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His X account is @JohnTures2.