Six other presidents didn’t run for another term. Here’s what happened then

President Joe Biden is in the fight for his political life, having acknowledged that the next few days are crucial to convincing the American public that he’s the right person to lead the country for the next four years.

The crisis comes after Biden’s dismal debate performance on June 27, when he appeared frail, his voice raspy, and during which he made several gaffes and appeared to lose his train of thought.

In public, he has insisted that he’s still in the race and that he’s confident that he can beat former president Donald Trump even as his predecessor is pulling away in poll after poll.

But there’s precedent for declining to run for a second term and stepping aside. Most recently, and possibly most famously, back in 1968.

Lyndon B Johnson

Johnson took over as president in 1963 following the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Winning the 1964 election, Johnson went on to announce that he wasn’t running for another term at the end of a speech about the war in Vietnam, which was tearing the country apart at the time.

On March 31, 1968, with the Democratic primary already underway, Johnson told the American people: “With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office – the presidency of your country.”

He added: “Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Mark Updegrove, presidential historian and the CEO of the LBJ Foundation, told CNN in 2022 that there’s a “misconception that LBJ opted not to run again due solely to the growing controversy and divisions over the war in Vietnam. That may have been part of it, but his principal concern was his health.”

“He had had a nearly fatal heart attack in 1955, and his family had a history of fatal heart disease,” Updegrove added. “He didn’t want to put the country through the kind of crisis we had gone through with the sudden death of FDR in 1945, and Woodrow Wilson’s stroke in 1919, which left him incapacitated.”

At the time of the speech, Johnson was almost 60 years old. At the age of 64 in 1973, he died of a heart attack.

Harry S Truman

Taking over after the death of one of the most consequential presidents in American history – Franklin D Roosevelt – Truman led the US through the end of the Second World War, deciding to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and through the beginning of the Cold War.

After losing the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Truman announced in late March 1952 that he wouldn’t run for what would in effect have been a third term.

“I have served my country long, and I think effectively and honestly,” he said.

The announcement came at a low point in his popularity, polling at 22 per cent in February of that year, Politico noted. 

Calvin Coolidge

Nicknamed “Silent Cal,” Coolidge was known for his few words. Ambiguously announcing his intention not to seek another term in August 1927, he issued slips of paper to the press with the statement “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.”

Coolidge’s presidency was marked by the Roaring Twenties as business boomed following the end of the First World War.

Coolidge, a vice president who took office after the death of President Warren G Harding in 1923, won the 1924 election and was considered to be able to win re-election in 1928, but had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in staying in office.

Rutherford B Hayes

Hayes became only the second president to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote in 1876.

During the campaign, he promised to only serve one term in his letter accepting the Republican nomination, according to the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.

Hayes led a part of the party arguing for reforming the civil service to base it on merit rather than patronage. In that vein, he committed to only serve one term, “lest patronage be used to secure his reelection,” the center noted.

The 1876 election would go on to be one of the most contested and hostile elections up until that time and has been cited by Republicans challenging the results of the 2020 election.

James Buchanan

Buchanan came into office as the country was heading towards the Civil War, winning the 1856 election with a plurality of the popular vote.

He tried to avoid dealing with the issue of slavery during his presidency. The National Constitution Center noted that in his inaugural speech, he said that the issue of slavery in new territories was “happily, a matter of but little practical importance."

The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court would a few days later further split the nation as it declared that Black people didn’t have the rights of citizens.

Buchanan supported the rights of states to decide whether to allow slavery, doing little to resolve the issue.

It was clear by 1860 that Buchanan wasn’t going to run for re-election, the center noted.

He appeared happy to leave the office. According to the Library of Congress, Buchanan expressed his joy at returning to his home Wheatland when speaking to his successor, Abraham Lincoln.

“My dear sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed,” he said.

James K Polk

Polk became the first president to step down voluntarily after one term after pledging only to serve four years following his 1844 election victory.

His election to the presidency was a remarkable comeback after serving as speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839 and governor of Tennessee between 1839 and 1841. He lost re-election and subsequently failed in his attempt at a comeback.

In the 1844 presidential race, he intended to run for the second spot, but the convention deadlocked over the issue of expansionism, with delegates eventually turning away from former president Martin Van Buren and towards Polk, who accepted the nomination.

Theodore Roosevelt became president following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt won the 1904 election but declined to run in 1908. However, he tried – and failed – to get the job back in the 1912 election as a third-party candidate.