Donald Trump’s 2024 historical milestones

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Every presidential election makes history, and the 2024 election set more historical milestones than most as Donald J. Trump will return to the White House as the 47th President of the United States. Here is an overview of those milestones:

Donald J. Trump

  • Donald J. Trump will be the 47th President of the United States. He already served as the 45th President, and joins Grover Cleveland (#22 and #24) as the only presidents to serve two non-consecutive terms in office.
  • Trump was the first former president to make a serious comeback bid since Theodore Roosevelt, who was president from 1901-09 and then ran as the Progressive “Bull Moose” candidate in 1912. In addition to Roosevelt and Cleveland, several other former presidents made failed comeback bids the 1800s, including Martin Van Buren, Martin Van Buren, and Ulysses S. Grant.
  • Trump, like Theodore Roosevelt, also survived an assassination attempt during his presidential campaign. He and Roosevelt are the only former presidents to be victims of such an attempt. Several other presidential candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy and George C. Wallace, have also been targeted by assassins (RFK, fatally). Trump is the first to go on to win the election.
  • With Trump’s nomination this summer, he became the ninth American to have been nominated for president at least three times. The only others in the past century are Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.
  • Trump will be the oldest new president when he is sworn in, taking office at the age of 78 years and 220 days. He breaks the record set by his predecessor, Joe Biden, who was 78 years and 61 days old. Biden had broken the record set by Trump in 2016.
  • When Trump was elected in 2016, he was the first president to have no experience in political office or high military command. That is not true this time, as he takes office with four years of service in the Oval Office.
  • Trump will take office with five of his predecessors living: Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Biden.  This is tied for the most ever, with Lincoln, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Trump in 2016.
  • Trump overcame an unprecedented number of political and legal setbacks to retake the White House. He is the first president to be elected after having been impeached. He will also be the first president to have been charged with or convicted of a felony (although new indicates that some of these charges are going to be dismissed, and his felony conviction is being appealed).

Trump also set a number of milestones when he was elected the first time in 2016:

  • Trump is estimated to be the wealthiest president of all time. Although Trump’s actual net worth has been the subject of some dispute, even $1 billion would make him #1.  John F. Kennedy stood to inherit $1 billion from his father, had he outlived him.  George Washington’s extensive land holdings would today be worth approximately $500 million.
  • Trump is the 1st president to be a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Trump is the 19th Republican to be president.
    • There have been 15 Democrats (including Andrew Johnson, who was elected on a “National Union” ticket with Republican Abraham Lincoln), 4 Democratic-Republicans, 4 Whigs, 1 Federalist, and George Washington, who was not a member of any party.
  • Trump is the 5th president to be born in New York state, following Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Only two states have produced more presidents:  Virginia (8) and Ohio (7).
    • He is the 2nd president to be born in New York City, following Theodore Roosevelt.
  • Trump is the 7th president to be a New York resident at the time of his election, following Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Chester Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and the Roosevelts. This is the most of any state – the next following are Virginia (5), Ohio (5) and Massachusetts (4).
  • Trump is the 2nd president born in the month of June, joining George H. W. Bush. His birthdate of June 14 follows by two days Bush’s June 12 birthday.  Until Bush was elected, June had been the only month not to produce a president.
  • Trump was born in 1946, the same year as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. This makes 1946 the first year to produce three presidents.  Trump is actually the oldest of the three; he is 22 days older than Bush and 68 days older than Clinton.
    • Four other years have produced more than one president: 1767 (J. Q. Adams and Jackson), 1822 (Grant and Hayes), 1913 (Nixon and Ford), and 1924 (Carter and G. H. W. Bush).
  • Trump is the first president to have the first name “Donald,” and the first to have the middle name “John” (and obviously the first to have the last name “Trump.”)
  • Trump is of German and Scottish ancestry. His German ancestry follows Hoover, Eisenhower and George W. Bush.  His Scottish ancestry follows at least 15 other presidents.
  • Trump is the 8th president to be Presbyterian, following Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Wilson and Eisenhower.
  • Many presidents have had famous residences, from Washington’s Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s Monticello to Theodore Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill and Lyndon Johnson’s LBJ Ranch. Trump Tower in New York City and the Mar-a-Lago in Florida are also squarely on that list.
  • Trump, at 6’3”, is among the tallest presidents. Lincoln was 6’4” and Lyndon Johnson was also 6’3”.
  • Trump is notable for three ways in which he is not historic. Unlike his general election opponent, Trump is male, like every other president.  He is of only European ancestry, like every other president except Obama.  He is a protestant Christian, like every president except Kennedy and Biden.

Melania Knauss Trump and the Trump family

  • Donald Trump is the second president to be divorced and remarried. The first was Ronald Reagan, who had divorced his first wife, Jane Wyman, and married Nancy Davis.  Trump is the first president to be twice-divorced, and the first president to have been married three times.  He divorced his first two wives, Ivana Zelníčková and Marla Maples, before marrying Melania Knauss.
  • Melania Trump is the 1st First Lady to not be a natural-born citizen, and the 2nd to be foreign-born. The first foreign-born First Lady was Louisa Johnson Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born while her father was American Consul in London.  (Although she was foreign-born, Louisa was a natural-born American due to her father’s citizenship.)
  • Donald Trump is nearly 25 years older than Melania. This is the second-largest age difference between a president and first lady, following John Tyler and his second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler, who was 30 years his junior.
  • Trump was the second-youngest of five siblings. Eight other presidents came from families of five.
  • Trump’s parents are both deceased. Eighteen presidents had at least one parent living at the time of his inauguration.
  • Trump has five children: three sons and two daughters.  Three other presidents had five children:  John Adams, Andrew Johnson, and Grover Cleveland.  Adams and Johnson also had three sons and two daughters.
  • Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his youngest, Barron Trump, differ in age by nearly 30 years. This is not the longest such difference in presidential history – that distinction is held by the oldest and youngest of John Tyler’s 15 children, who had a 40-year age difference.

J. D. Vance

  • James David Vance will be the 50th Vice President of the United States.
  • Vance is the 1st vice president to be elected from the state of Ohio, which is somewhat surprising as it has been the home of six U.S. Presidents. Three other vice president were, like Vance, born in Ohio, but all three relocated to other states for their political careers: Thomas A. Hendricks (of Indiana, serving with Grover Cleveland), Charles W. Fairbanks (of Indiana, serving with Theodore Roosevelt), and Charles G. Dawes (of Illinois, serving with Calvin Coolidge).
  • Vance is the 1st graduate of Ohio State University to serve as vice president. He is the 3rd vice president to be a graduate of Yale University, joining John C. Calhoun, Gerald R. Ford, and George H. W. Bush. (Ford, like Vance, graduated from Yale Law School).
  • As a U.S. Senator, Vance is the 9th consecutive vice president to have served in Congress. The most recent to lack congressional service was Nelson Rockefeller, who had served as Governor of New York.
  • Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants, making her the first Second Lady not to be of only European ancestry. First Gentleman Doug Emhoff was the first Jewish-American spouse of a vice president.

2024 Election, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz

  • Joe Biden became the fourth president to serve just one term and to not seek reelection, and the most recent since Rutherford B. Hayes, who served from 1877-1881. The others were James K. Polk and James Buchanan. Of those three, only Hayes saw his party retain the White House as he was succeeded by James A. Garfield. Polk and Buchanan, both Democrats, were followed respectively by Zachary Taylor, a Whig, and Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president.
    • Biden’s decision not to seek reelection was not entirely voluntary; unlike the others listed above, he had announced a reelection bid and withdrew in the face of political headwinds. It was a situation comparable to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 and Harry S. Truman in 1952, although they had both succeeded to the presidency and then served one more complete term.
  • Trump won the popular vote for the first time in 2024. In 2016, he had become the fifth president to win the electoral college but lose the popular vote. He is on pace to win 312 electoral votes, exceeding his 2016 total and achieving the largest win for a Republican since George H. W. Bush won 426 electoral votes in 1988.
  • The 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections are the first time that the incumbent party has lost three times in a row since 1884, 1888, and 1892 – the three elections that produced Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms, bracketing Benjamin Harrison.
  • Kamala Harris was the second woman to be nominated for president by a major party, following Hillary Clinton. She was the first Asian-American to be nominated, and the first African-American woman to be nominated and, had she won, would have been the first U.S. President to hold any of those distinctions. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, would have been the first “First Gentleman.”
  • Harris would have been the first U.S. President to be a graduate of Howard University or of the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.
  • Harris’ running mate, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, would have been the third Minnesotan to serve as vice president, following Hubert H. Humprey and Walter F. Mondale. Walz was born in Nebraska; he would have been the second Nebraska-born vice president, following Gerald R. Ford, who was born in Omaha but grew up in and was elected from Michigan.