If Donald Trump wins back the White House on November 5, he would not be the first former president to be nominated for a non-consecutive second term.

This honor belongs to Grover Cleveland of New Jersey, the 22nd and 24th Presidents of the United States.

Cleveland's first presidential run and the Maria Halpin scandal

Trump and Cleveland have some similarities, aside from running for the White House in three consecutive cycles.

Both men are plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct including rape.

During the 1884 presidential campaign, Cleveland – then the Democratic governor of New York – was accused by Maria Halpin, a garment industry executive in Buffalo, of fathering her child a decade earlier – and of using his political influence to get Halpin in to be taken to a psychiatric ward Child was adopted by another family.

“In an 1874 affidavit,” the Chicago Tribune wrote at the time, according to Smithsonian Magazine, “Halpin strongly indicated that Cleveland’s entry into her room and the incident that occurred there were not consensual—it was forceful and violent “, she claimed, and “He later promised to ruin her if she went to the authorities.”

Cleveland's campaign admitted that he and Halpin were “illicit acquaintances,” but the governor left open the paternity of Halpin's child – named Oscar Folsom Cleveland – and argued that none of the prominent Buffalo businessmen in his circle ( who were all married) could have been the boy's father.

Halpin argued: “There was and has been no doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt by Grover Cleveland or his friends to associate the name of Oscar Folsom or anyone else with the boy's name for this purpose is simply notorious and wrong.” “

However, Cleveland's downplaying of the encounter as an unhappy teenage liaison – even though he was in his mid-30s at the time – won the day, and he defeated Republican Senator James Blaine of Maine in the November election, becoming the first Democrat to win the White House since then Civil War.

Cleveland's first term and defeat

Cleveland was miserly on issues of economic policy and refused handouts and special favors from the government – he even vetoed a bill that would provide $10,000 in federal funds (about $325,000 today) to drought-stricken Texas farmers the purchase of seeds would have been possible.

But it was his veto of increases in Civil War veterans' pensions and his antipathy to workers' rights that contributed most to his failed bid for re-election.

Cleveland lost the 1888 presidential election to Republican former Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, becoming the only incumbent to date to win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College.

Re-election and second term of Grover Cleveland

Four years later, Cleveland got his revenge by defeating Harrison in the first duel of major-party candidates who had served as president.

The term of office of the 24th President was marked by the economic panic of 1893 and the associated labor unrest. Although Cleveland could have sought a third term in 1896, he chose not to challenge the Democratic nomination.

After the election of Republican William McKinley of Ohio that year, no Democrat won the presidency until Woodrow Wilson's victory in 1912.

Presidents who have attempted to win non-consecutive terms but failed

If Trump loses his comeback campaign, he would have more company. Former Presidents Martin Van Buren (1848), Millard Fillmore (1856), Ulysses S. Grant (1880), and Teddy Roosevelt (1912) all failed in their attempts to return to the presidency after a gap of at least four years.

While Grant and Roosevelt tried to win a third term in the Oval Office, Trump will not have that luck if he emerges victorious on Tuesday.

The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, states that no person can be elected president more than twice.