# Was Nixon eligible to run again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 30, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378 "2022-05-30T19:38:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/1 "2022-05-30T19:38:57Z")
He hadn’t yet served half his second term when he resigned, so assuming we would have missed him VERY VERY much, could he have legally run for POTUS in 1976 or any election thereafter? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/2 "2022-05-30T19:42:39Z")
Nope–very first line of the 22nd Amendment: > **No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice** The stipulation about being able to run again if you had only served a partial term, explicitly does not apply in Nixon’s case because he already failed the initial qualifier of the amendment in having been elected twice. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/3 "2022-05-30T22:48:37Z")
As already stated, you only get two bites at the apple, which puts Trump in a bit of a quandary. Since he thinks his second victory was stolen, does he consider himself still president? If he does then he can’t run in 2024, unless he admits he lost fair and square in 2020. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/4 "2022-05-30T23:03:09Z")
But that’s merely logical. Since when has that been a concern for Trump? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/5 "2022-05-30T23:44:36Z")
Perhaps TPTB can make this work. Imagine Trump tries to run; the Supremes say he can’t run since he can’t be elected since he claims he was already was elected twice. He has to either admit to the Big Lie, or resign his candidacy. Sounds like a win-win for the rest of us. Being FQ I can’t speculate how how likely the Supremes are to decide as I suggest they might logically do. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/6 "2022-05-31T00:37:14Z")
I don’t know that the number of times Trump thinks he was elected, or the number of times he claims to have been elected, is relevant. Some court somewhere (maybe SCOTUS) would have to rule on how many times he was actually factually elected (which needn’t necessarily be equal to the number of times he claims he was elected); that actual count is all that matters according to the 22nd Amendment. Note that 60-some lower courts have already taken a look (some of them cursory) and none have found any evidence that he actually WAS elected twice already. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/7 "2022-05-31T00:49:38Z")
[Moderating] Trump’s delusions are off topic. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/8 "2022-05-31T02:26:19Z")
@Chronos, please [step over to ATMB](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chronos-and-trumps-delusions/965399). ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/9 "2022-05-31T06:20:35Z")
I think the standard that would be used in a case like this would be the number of times that he was inaugurated. I realize that the Construction doesn’t use that as the benchmark, but it seems like a rational position to take. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/10 "2022-05-31T14:09:55Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Nope–very first line of the 22nd Amendment: > > > **No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice** > > The stipulation about being able to run again if you had only served a partial term, explicitly does not apply in Nixon’s case because he already failed the initial qualifier of the amendment in having been elected twice. So - in theory - Gerald Ford could have been elected twice, and serve more than two terms? ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/11 "2022-05-31T14:12:44Z")
Yeah, that was my presumption about Nixon–that he could be re-elected because he left office with less than half his term to go. But that kinda means that Ford COULDN’T have run twice because he would have served more than half of a term, plus one elected term. So, no. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/12 "2022-05-31T14:13:35Z")
No–because the 22nd Amendment also says this: > [@](#): > > and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. Ford served 2 years and 5 months of the term to which Nixon was elected. Had he won in the 1976 election, he would have been term-limited and would have ended his Presidency in January of 1981. Essentially under the 22nd Amendment the theoretical maximum time you could be President would be exactly 10 years. Imagine you are Vice President, and with exactly 2 years left in the term, the President dies. You become President, and serve 2 years (but not one day more–this way you don’t run afoul of the “more than two years” stipulation), then you get elected to two additional full four year terms. I believe in our history the only President to succeed the Presidency of another who could have been elected two more times, since the 22nd Amendment was ratified, was LBJ. He served less than 2 years of Kennedy’s term, and won reelection to a full term of his own in 1964. He could have ran again in 1968 had he wished, but decided not to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/13 "2022-05-31T20:14:00Z")
Getting back to Trump (sorry), remember the election is by the electoral college and he was not elected by them in 2021. That’s definitive. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/14 "2022-05-31T20:21:05Z")
An interesting aside is that the amendment specifically exempted the (then) incumbent. So Harry Truman (The greatest president whose name started with T-R-U-M) could have run and been elected for the balance of his natural life. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/15 "2022-06-01T09:00:00Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Essentially under the 22nd Amendment the theoretical maximum time you could be President would be exactly 10 years. You can go past that if you succeed to the presidency more than once before being elected. The 22nd Amendment can bump you down to only being electable once, but it never reduces you to zero. That’s a little far-fetched, but it’s plausible enough that it _could_ have happened to Gerald Ford. He was seriously considered as a running mate by Reagan in 1980, and Reagan was an old man who got shot very early in his presidency. If things had gone only a little differently, Ford could have finished out that term with more than six years as president, but he still would have been eligible to be elected in his own right in 1984. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/16 "2022-06-01T13:14:09Z")
**Moderator Note** > [@E-DUB](#): > > (The greatest president whose name started with T-R-U-M) Keep the political pot-shots out of this forum, please. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/17 "2022-06-01T15:52:56Z")
I am shocked. I had always thought that the intention of the 22nd Amendment was to prevent a third **consecutive** term, such as that of Franklin Roosevelt, and that Trump would be able to run in 2024. But I now see that it would also prevent a **non** -consecutive presidency, such as that of Grover Cleveland. I suspect that I’m not the only one who thought this way. The Wikipedia article [Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) mentions Roosevelt about a dozen times, but Cleveland not even once. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/18 "2022-06-01T16:47:23Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > An interesting aside is that the amendment specifically exempted the (then) incumbent. So Harry Truman … My understanding is that this sort of exemption is very common for laws about election rules, in order to prevent the law from becoming a referendum about the incumbent. Imagine if the 22nd Amendment would NOT have included this exemption. Anti-Truman states would have automatically been in favor of the amendment, and Pro-Truman states would have been against it. By removing Truman from the effects, every state could vote more clearly on the merits of the amendment itself. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/19 "2022-06-01T17:27:58Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I am shocked. I had always thought that the intention of the 22nd Amendment was to prevent a third **consecutive** term, such as that of Franklin Roosevelt, and that Trump would be able to run in 2024. But I now see that it would also prevent a **non** -consecutive presidency, such as that of Grover Cleveland. You better explain your thinking here. I have no idea how you get that it prevents non-consecutive terms as President. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378/20 "2022-06-01T17:33:00Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I have no idea how you get that it prevents non-consecutive terms as President. I think the point was that @Keeve was under the impression that, after serving two consecutive terms, and then leaving office for at least one term, a former president could run and win again, getting a third (but non-consecutive) term. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nixon-eligible-to-run-again/965378.md?page=2)