How many US Presidents served only one term?

Answer

Depends how you define it.

12 Presidents have served a single elected term - John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, James K Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush.

4 Presidents - Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S Truman and Lyndon B Johnson - have succeeded to the Presidency through death, and then gone on to serve a single elected term of their own.

3 Presidents were elected to second terms but failed to complete them. - Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley served only a few weeks or months of their second terms before being assassinated, and Richard M Nixon, resigned 19 months into his second term.

5 Presidents - William H Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James A. Garfield, Warren G Harding, and John F. Kennedy - died during their first terms and so had no opportunity to seek a second.

5 Presidents - John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, and Gerald Ford - succeeded from the Vice-Presidency but did not win elected terms of their own.

That gives 29 Presidentts who were "single-termers" by one definition or another.

First answer by ATX Dem. Last edit by ATX Dem. Contributor trust: 0 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 3 [recommend question]