Has a sitting President of the U.S., who was both willing and able to serve another term in office, been denied nomination as a candidate by his political party? In other words, we have Republican President John Doe, who’s done nothing to get thrown out of office during his first term, is still alive and wants to stay President, but has done something so morally reprehensible (for example) that the Republican Party simply says, “no, we’re going to have someone else run for President, since you’re now an unelectable jerk.” Has such a situation ever occured? If so, what was it?
I’m not sure if Congresspeople are nominated in a similar manner. If so, has this ever happened with any of them? State Governors?
Has a similar situation ever happened in countries other than the U.S.? For purposes of this discussion, I suppose an assassination by members of one’s own political party would count as them saying, “you’re now an unelectable jerk” with a bullet.
Andrew Johnson comes to mind. He was certainly eligible to run in 1868. However, since he was impeached (although acquited), I don’t think he had any illusions about trying to seek the Repulican nomination. Johnson, however, was a Democrat who ran on a “Union” ticket with Lincoln.
The only president who falls into this category would be Franlkin Pierce. He wanted to be renominated in 1856, but he had done such a colosally bad job as President, that the Democrats opted to nominate James Buchanan, mainly because Buchanan had been out of the country during the recent tumult over the status of Kansas as a free or slave state.
Buchanan was not renominated in 1860, but he wasn’t seeking the nomination. Pierce would have gladly accepted renomination.
Pierce was a pretty bad president and one of the least-qualified people to hold that office IMO.
As for other one termers, Polk said he would only serve one term (and he died shortly after his term ended). Others got renominated but lost. Taft and Carter had the most serious contenders for renomination.
The first few VPs who filled out the rest of a term didn’t run again: Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur.
Tyler had been kicked out of his party, the Whigs and the Democrats didn’t want him back.
Fillmore was also a Whig and they wanted someone new in 1852. He ran again in 1856 as a Know Nothing.
Andrew Johnson was impeached so it wasn’t likely that he had any political support. Besides he was a Democrat in a time when the Republicans were pretty much the only game in town.
Arthur suffered from Bright’s Disease (although he kept it secret) and knew he wouldn’t live through a second term.
It is fairly rare for a sitting Congressman or Senator to be denied the nomination if he wants it, but it does happen. Carol Moesley Braun beat incumbent Alan Dixon in the 1992 Illinois Democratic Primary, in part because of the latter’s vote to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court
In the parliamentary system you don’t nominate someone to run for Prime Minister (legally, there’s no such office, at least in the U.K. and Canada). The equivalent for us would be if the PM’s party challenged his/her leadership and kicked her/him out of the party leadership. In that case, the individual ceases to be Prime Minister.
Maggie Thatcher is probably one of the most famous cases: she lost office because she lost the confidence of her own parliamentary party and had to resign. Grey John Major was elected leader of the party instead, and thus became PM.
For a more recent example, you just have to look north to Canada. Prime Minister Chrétien won three back-to-back majority governments (1993, 1997, 2000), something that no-one’s done since PM Mackenzie King back in the 30s and 40s. However, Chrétien had a determined opponent within the party, Paul Martin, who bided his time and gradually took over the party machinery. When it became clear in the summer of 2002 that Martin had the votes in the party to force a leadership review of Chrétien, and would likely win it, triggering a leadership convention, Chrétien announced that he would step down in late 2003 or early 2004. Martin was elected leader of the Liberal party in November, 2003, and was sworn in as Prime Minister in early December.
You’ll note that neither of these cases were unsuccessful Prime Ministers, like the example of President Pierce. Both were successful Prime Ministers who didn’t appreciate that it might be time to move on and let someone else have a chance.
It’s somewhat different, but you may be interested to hear what CAN happen to a prime minister in the UK: in theory, since the prime minister is selected from the government party, consisting of those MPs of the appropriate parties elected by their constituencies, if the prime minister’s constituency elects a different MP they’re out. Of course, it’s very unlikely, since the party generally makes sure the prime minister runs in a constituency almost certain to support him.
In the 2002 Congressional elections, 8 incumbents in the House who sought renomination lost in their primaries.
There were 6 Democrats and 2 Republicans. 3 of the Democrats who lost were running aganist fellow incumbents in districts that had been merged by reapportionment.
That left 3 who lost solely because their district didn’t like them. One was Gary Condit (CA), who lost for fairly obvious reasons. The others were Earl Hilliard of Alabama, Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, and Thomas Sawyer of Ohio.
The 2 Republicans who lost primary races were running against fellow incumbents in districts that had been merged.
In the Senate, one incumbent was denied renomination. Republican Bob Smith of New Hampshire, who had a brief run for the presidency and briefly switched to independent, was not renominated.
No incumbent governors seeking reelection in 2002 were denied renomination.
Not necessarily. There’s no requirement that the PM hold a seat in the Commons. If the PM loses his own seat, but still has the support of the party, it’s always a possibility that a party stalwart will resign his seat to allow the PM to run in a by-election. If the PM carries the by-election, he just carries on in office.
Of course, if the PM’s support in the party is shaky to start with, losing his own seat could give his opponents in the party the wherewithal to force him out.
In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson just barely won the New Hampshire primary over a very strong 2d by Sen. Eugene McCarthy running on an anti-Vietnam platform. Although I don’t think anyone gave McCarthy a very serious chance of taking the nomination, LBJ saw this as a repudiation of his war policies and figured that if were the nominee he’d cost the Democrats the White House. He dropped out of the race and groomed his VP, Hubert Humphrey, as his successor. Not exactly what the OP asked for, but it was a case in which an eligible incumbent was not his party’s nominee for president. Humphrey did end up getting the nomination, but he was tainted by Vietnam as well as his boss (not to mention the Chicago riots at the nominating convention), and he lost the general to Nixon.