However, the Democrat’s popularity slipped badly over the Vietnam War and domestic turmoil. Johnson was vice president at the time of Kennedy’s death, and he swiftly ran for his first full term in 1964, winning a landslide victory over Republican Barry Goldwater. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, before he had a chance to run for a second term. He defeated Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. He had suffered a heart attack months earlier at age 64, leading to questions over whether he would run.Īs the former supreme allied commander during World War II, Eisenhower convinced Americans that he was the right leader on the world stage.

US readies second attempt at speedy border asylum screeningsĮisenhower, a Republican, had an approval rating of 75% shortly before he announced his reelection campaign on Feb. Truman was expected to lose the general election to Thomas Dewey, a Republican, but he pulled off a narrow victory. He had an approval rating of 53% in a poll conducted two months earlier. Truman decided to run for a full term of his own, and he announced his candidacy on March 8, 1948. He was vice president when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945, near the end of World War II. That’s good news for Biden, who appears to have avoided any significant challengers. One theme: Primary battles are a sign of whether a president will win reelection.

We went back to look at when modern presidents announced their decisions to seek a second term, what their Gallup approval ratings were at the time and how things turned out for them.

He’s pushing forward even though polls show a majority of Americans don’t want to see him run again. WASHINGTON (AP) - No president wants to give up the power and prestige that comes with the office after only one term, and Joe Biden is no exception. Despite concerns about his age - he was 73 and the oldest president in history at the time - Reagan handily defeated Walter Mondale, a Democrat. FILE - This photo shows buttons from the 1984 Reagan-Bush campaign.

George Washington by Augusta Stevenson