Has a general election "loser", ever won the presidency?

Once a party presidential nominee runs an unsuccessful general campaign, can he win the presidency at a later time?
Has this ever happened?

Humphrey
McCarthy
mcGovern
Mondale
Dukakis

Should Gore or Kerry run again , and win, would they be the first defeated nominees to make good?

NT

but won the popular vote both came back to win a general election later.

but he didn't get a majority and it was thrown to the House of Representatives, where (I believe) Henry Clay threw it to Adams. That was the start of the four-year "corrupt bargain" campaign that swept Jackson to power at the next election.

Jackson believed there was a conspiracy to get Adams in and not him even though he won the general election. I don't think Adams actually had any corruption in his government (I'll have to relook at that) but it was just Jackson being pissed off. This is also the campaign where smear tactics started.

Is History Calling Gore Back Into White House Politics?

By SCOTT SHEPARD
Cox News Service
Tuesday, March 21, 2006

WASHINGTON — Is history calling Al Gore back into the political fray? History says candidates who won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college have all gotten their revenge with wins in subsequent elections, if they ran again. And now, after years of calling himself a "recovering politician," Gore is flirting again with politics.

Or is he?

Even those who were part of his inner circle in 2000 when Gore lost the White House to George W. Bush in one of the closest and perhaps most controversial presidential elections in American history still don't have a clear idea what the former vice president is thinking in terms of a 2008 campaign.

"I do not know for sure if he's looking or flirting," Donna Brazile, his 2000 campaign manager, said in an interview Monday. "But, I have an opinion - Gore remains a headliner and can raise money and rally the base. (But) it's hard for Gore to rule out running again before looking at the landscape."

-snip-
But political analysts, in considering the prospect of a Gore comeback, cite the historic precedents of candidates who won the popular vote but lost the electoral college vote, only to win later: Andrew Jackson, losing in 1824 and winning in 1828, and Grover Cleveland, denied in 1888 but triumphant in 1892. (Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but lost the White House to Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election, but did not seek the presidency again.)

-snip-
Longtime Republican operative Roger Stone Jr. made similar points in a column he wrote in February for the New York Observer, citing "uncanny parallels" in the careers of Gore and Richard Nixon, who narrowly lost the White House in 1960 but rebounded to win it in 1968. Nixon's "persistence, drive and shrewdness, coupled with a divisive war, drove the most remarkable political comeback in American history" in 1968 and could "do the same" in 2008, Stone wrote.

http://www.coxwashington.com/reporters/content/reporters/stories/2006/03/21/BC_GORE_1STLD_COX.html

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A more accurate comparison to Nixon would be Kerry. Nixon ran against Kennedy and lost and than after Kennedy and Johnson he ran again. Gore skipped an election where as Kerry if he does run again wouldn't have skipped an election season. Same thing with Jackson. He started campaigning right after Adams was inaugurated it seemed like.

were four years but they were candidates that won the popular vote but lost the electoral college which fits Gore.

Nixon. Of course.
I'd repressed all those memories.

Both will run again. My dream would be Gore/Kerry.

but painfully inept campaigners, both of them. This would give the Republicans their best chance, other than Hillary and anybody.

Because it didn't happen before doesn't mean it can't again.

Al Gore won the popular vote, too, so his running again is not out of the question, IMO.

Neither guys have come out and said anything about running. Kerry has given plenty of signs however for anyone looking where as Gore hasn't. While it would be cool to see Gore run again I don't think he will honestly. Either that or he's being very careful about when to make his announcement. I find it interesting that Feingold is not running when he has a good number of support.

that's 3 out of 43 presidents. You could also include John Adams who won 34 electoral votes against George Washington. There are very few other MAJOR party candidates who even tried - Adlai Stevenson is the only one I know of. (William Jenning Bryant I think was a third party candidaet as was Perot.)

William Jennings Bryan (no "t") was a Democrat. However, I believe in the 1896 election he was some how the nominee of the Populists as well as the Democrats.

Interestingly enough, Bryan was a very religious man (later argued against teaching evolution in the Scopes Trial).

I do remember his role in the Scopes trial but only because of the movie based on it.

Lost in contraversy in 60, won in 68

and then defeated him 4 years later.

really won the election, but SCOTUS fixed that.

If we'd had the 2006 media in 2004, Kerry would have won in the same kind of landslide. We've got to do something about these pundits and media who repeat lies on the front pages and never tell people the lies came from the RNC.

...the race for Governor of California. That's when he gave his famous "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" speech to the press, and then dropped out of politics.

6 years later he was President.

Any thing can happen.

Jefferson tried to inherit the mantle of George Washington but lost to John Adams (despite having a higher popular vote total). He then ran again and won the next election against Adams.

it seems that it sometimes helps if you ignore focus groups and recieived wisdom and trust the electorate to see through the bullshit.

I'm afraid this is viewed as political heresey in most parties regardless of political stamp.

Who the hell cares? If both men want to run again let them and than let the people decide in the primary's. What's with this "loser" crap? Neither men are losers but I do get tired of people going around saying Kerry is a loser because he "lost" in 2004 but then turn around and say "Gore 08!" uh hello he "lost" 2000. :eyes: But yes it has happened. For example Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. That's all I can think of at the top of my head.