The second-term curse is the perceived tendency of second term
U.S. presidents to be less successful than their first terms.
According to the curse, the second terms of U.S. presidents have usually been plagued by a major scandal, policy inertia, some sort of catastrophe, or other problems.
There have been twenty-one U.S. presidents who have served a second term,
each of whom has faced difficulties attributed to the curse. The legend behind the second-term curse is that after
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
broke the ''
de facto'' second term limit by running for third and fourth terms, the ghost of
George Washington
George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
might have put a curse on any president who seeks a second term.
This legend notwithstanding, several presidents who served prior to this, including Washington and Roosevelt themselves, were plagued by problems in their second term more serious than in their first.
[
Whether this perceived tendency is real is a subject of dispute: for example, political statistician ]Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who Sabermetrics, analyzes baseball, basketball and Psephology, elections. He is the founder of ''FiveThirty ...
, after analyzing presidential approval ratings for Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
through Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
, did find that approval ratings were lower on average during second terms, but he also found a variety of other reasons to explain those ratings, such as regression toward the mean
In statistics, regression toward the mean (also called regression to the mean, reversion to the mean, and reversion to mediocrity) is the phenomenon where if one sample of a random variable is extreme, the next sampling of the same random var ...
, and he concluded that "the idea of the second-term curse is sloppy as an analytical concept".[ Conversely, a 2013 report in '']The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' has said that the existence of the second-term curse is supported by data. The report stated that each of the eleven second terms served from the beginning of the Theodore Roosevelt administration to the end of the George W. Bush administration were less economically prosperous than their respective president's first term, save for the second terms of Truman, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
, and Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
.survivorship bias
Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.
Survivorship bias is ...
; presidents who are elected for a second term are more likely to have had a good first term, making their second term look worse by comparison.
Presidents of the curse
See also
* Curse of Tippecanoe
* Six-year itch
The six-year itch, according to political scientists, is the pattern which takes place during a U.S. president's sixth year in office. This year is characterized by the nation's disgruntled attitude towards the president and their political part ...
Notes
References
{{Reflist
Curses
Presidency of the United States
Political terminology of the United States
United States presidential history