If United States President Donald Trump were to lose this presidential election in 2020 to his rival Joe Biden, a second Trump term is not off the table.

This is because a person can be elected to the office of the president no more than two terms, as the current U.S. constitution states.

As Trump has technically only completed his first term, he can still run again for a second term in 2024, as his two terms do not have to be served back to back consecutively.

This technicality has been discussed more than two weeks ago by 10tv.com, which dug through the U.S. constitution and past history to find out any past precedent set and the rules that govern who can be eligible for two terms as president.

10tv.com wrote:

The 22nd Amendment was ratified and added to the Constitution in 1951. It officially established that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”. But it doesn’t say anything about those terms being consecutive and no other laws or rules are preventing it.

Past precedents set

Interestingly, in the 19th century, a two-term president who did not serve his terms back to back did succeed in running for office again having been president for one term and losing his re-election bid.

This actually has happened in U.S. history.

Democrat Grover Cleveland won the presidency in 1884.

However, he lost his reelection campaign to Benjamin Harrison four years later.

Cleveland then ran again against Harrison in 1892 and won.

Cleveland served two terms as president but they were not consecutive.

Trump to run again in 2024 floated as an idea

Steve Bannon, a former advisor to Trump and the head of his 2016 presidential campaign, told Australian news outlet, The Australian, that Trump would likely run again in 2024 if he lost the election in 2020.

If Trump loses, Bannon said, “you’re not going to see the end of Donald Trump”.

“I’ll make this prediction right now – if for any reason the election is stolen from or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he’s going to run for re-election in 2024,” he told the newspaper.

If that happens, Trump, 74, would be 78 on election day 2024.

Biden will turn 78 on Inauguration Day in January 2021 if he wins on Nov. 3.

We deliver more stories to you on LinkedIn