The Reagan Curse
Since 1968, no person who has ever run for president against Ronald Reagan has ever been able to serve two full presidential terms. In 1968, Reagan, as a popular governor of California, ran against former Vice President Richard Nixon. Although Nixon succeeded in securing the Republican Party’s nomination and went on to become the 37th president of the United States, he resigned from office on August 9, 1974, with nearly two and a half years remaining in his second term.
President Nixon was succeeded by President Gerald Ford upon Nixon’s resignation. In 1976 Ford ran for reelection and was challenged in the Republican Primary by Reagan. Reagan was again unsuccessful in receiving the nomination of the Republican Party, this time losing the nomination to President Ford. However, Ford was unable to secure a second term as president, going on to lose the 1976 general election to Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.
In 1980 Carter ran for a second term against Reagan and was soundly defeated in the electoral college, thus denying him a second term.
Ronald Reagan served two terms as president (1981–1989) — the only president to serve two full terms (at that time) since President Dwight Eisenhower (1953–1961). Thus, over the 20 year span between the Eisenhower presidency and the Regan presidency no president served for a full eight years.
Reagan was succeeded by George H.W. Bush, his vice president, in 1989. Bush, who ran for president in the Republican Primary in 1980, losing to Reagan, is the last US President to have run against Reagan for the presidency. President Bush ran for reelelection in 1992, coming in second place in a three-way race to Bill Clinton. (In that election, businessman Ross Perot ran the most successful third party campaign since Theodore Roosevelt’s third-party run in 1912.)
Since 1993, no serving president has run against Reagan, and all presidents from 1993 to date have served two full terms. If Donald Trump serves less than two full terms, that will make him the first president since 1968 to serve for less than eight years who hasn’t run against Ronald Reagan, thus breaking the Reagan curse.
