Is Donald Trump the next Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt or Millard Filmore?

The evening after last week’s midterm elections, first lady Jill Biden hosted a dinner for the White House Historical Association, founded by Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 to preserve the Executive Mansion as a historic icon of American democracy. A member of the association’s board of directors, I wondered in advance whether the president’s home would be draped in black crepe if the dire predictions of massive Democratic losses in the 2022 midterms materialized.

In a surprise appearance at the pre-dinner reception, President Biden was a portrait of joyful relief. Taking a victory lap over his party’s unexpectedly strong showing, he had just returned from a news conference where he announced his “intention” to run for reelection in 2024. Will the next presidential contest reenact 2020, with Biden and former president Donald Trump at the top of their respective parties’ tickets? Will Trump attempt to be the country’s next Grover Cleveland, our only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms in the White House?

In a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump on Tuesday announced he’ll run for president in 2024, after filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to set up a campaign fundraising account.

Trump and Cleveland share many characteristics. They certainly have the same rotund body type. Both have a history of womanizing: Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock; Trump’s three marriages and alleged porn-star liaisons are infamous. Each president is known for characteristic hairstyles — Cleveland’s walrus mustache, popular in the late 19th century, and Trump’s combover, a last resort for balding men in any era. Both suffered medical emergencies during their presidencies (Cleveland’s cancer surgery; Trump’s COVID diagnosis), and each tried to keep details from the public. Both lost reelection on their first try for a second term.

Here is where Trump hopes to follow in Cleveland’s footsteps. Having lost in his bid for reelection to Benjamin Harrison in the controversial race of 1888, despite winning the popular vote, the 22nd president moved back to New York. As Mrs. Cleveland departed the White House, she asked the staff to take good care of the furnishings because she and her husband would return in four years. And they did.

Cleveland thwarted Harrison’s reelection effort in 1892 and began his second term exactly four years after leaving office. But to become both the 45th and 47th president of the United States, Trump not only will have to avoid imprisonment if he is charged with a crime from any of the federal or state investigations underway, but he also will have to cement his leadership of the Republican Party, which now shows cracks after the losses of so many Trump-backed candidates in the midterms.

The unexpected winner of the 2016 Republican nomination and the general election over Hillary Clinton will have to contend with other ambitious GOP officials — perhaps including Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia; Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina; and former officeholders Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. Some may be willing to settle for the vice-presidential spot on another Trump ticket, but most appear to be laying the groundwork for their own potential race to the Oval Office.

If Republicans turn to another standard-bearer for 2024, will Trump finally stand down or will he continue to stand by and launch a “MAGA Party” bid, following Teddy Roosevelt’s path in 1912? After breaking ranks with his protégé, President William Howard Taft, and losing his bid for the Republican nomination, Roosevelt founded the Progressive Party. He succeeded only in splitting the GOP base and handing the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Today’s Democrats would like nothing better than to watch Trump commit this third-party form of political hari-kari.

Such a disaster might place Trump in the mold of President Millard Fillmore. Denied the nomination of his Whig Party in 1852, after serving the final three years of the deceased Zachary Taylor’s term, Fillmore joined the new American Party, an anti-immigrant faction that earned the appropriate moniker, “Know Nothings,” for the response its members were to give when asked about the secretive splinter party.

Or will Trump be relegated to the ranks of a perennial also-ran, former Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen, who tried for the Republican presidential nomination a record nine times — all unsuccessfully — from 1948 to 1992. His name became synonymous with “loser” and a punchline for late-night talk show comedians.

Barbara A. Perry is Presidential Studies director and Gerald L. Baliles Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA.