How many times can a president be reelected in the United States?

The law states that a president can only be in office for two terms, meaning, a person in the United States can be president for only 8 years. These terms don’t necessarily have to be consecutive.

However, there’s an exception to this rule: if someone (for example, a vice president when the president resigns) has been acting president for a period over 2 years, they can only be in office for another 4-year term.

Donald Trump was president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 after winning the election in 2016. On the other hand, Joe Biden won the election in 2020 and has been president since 2021. Additionally, Trump lost the re-election, something that only happened five times in the last 100 years.

Biden’s term will finish in January 2025. Both Trump (republican) and Biden (democrat) are running in this election - they both gathered the required amount of delegates in primary elections to be nominated as candidates. They are in the same situation - each of them has been in office for one term only, and whoever wins in November 2024 can only be in office for only one more 4-year term, leaving the White House in 2029.

Which president has been in office the longest in history?

This was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was president from 1933 until he died in 1945. He won the election four consecutive times and he was in office until his death on April 12th, 1945, a few months before the Second World War was over. He died of a brain hemorrhage caused by his poliomyelitis, with which he was diagnosed in 1921. 

In 1951, Congress passed the Amendment XXII, which establishes that presidents can only be in office for two 4-year terms. Amendments are reformations and extensions of the United States Constitution of 1787.

Has there ever been a president in office in non-consecutive terms?

Usually, in the United States, presidents are in office for one or two terms (4 or 8 years), and they normally are consecutive. This was the case even before the Amendment XXII was passed in 1951.

There was only one president in office in non-consecutive terms: Grover Cleveland. His first term in the White House was from 1885 to 1889. After that, he lost the re-election against Benjamin Harrison, who was president from 1889 to 1893. Finally, Cleveland won the election again that year and was president for a second term, from 1893 to 1897.

Presidential and legislative terms

In the United States, there are 2 political terms present in the Constitution: the presidency and the Congress legislation, which includes the Senate and the House of Representatives. The president’s term is 4 years, the senators’ 6 years, and the legislators at the House of Representatives’ 2 years. The president’s term starts with presidential elections, while the legislators at the House of Representatives and the senators’ starts with legislative elections.

For each presidential term, there are two legislative terms. One of the legislative elections coincides with the presidential elections, while the others are held in the middle of the presidential term - hence the definition “midterm elections.”

There is also another difference: Like we’ve explained in our #ElectoralExplainer, the Constitution only establishes a limit for presidential terms’ length, meaning the senators and representatives can run for re-election as many times as they want.

Click here to read our #ElectoralExplainer: A guide with everything you need to know about the 2024 presidential elections

Factchequeado is a verification media outlet built by a Spanish-speaking community to tackle disinformation in the United States. Do you want to be part of it? Join us and verify the content you receive by sending it to our WhatsApp +16468736087or tofactchequeado.com/whatsapp.