A comparison between Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson is often made by both the media and the 45th president himself. It’s not hard to see why; both presidents ran on populist platforms, both with an anti-establishment slant, and both appealed to white Americans’ fear of non-white outsiders. As of 2020, another similarity has arisen between the two presidents, notably a grievance they both shared with an election they lost, which they chose to center in their re-election efforts. Jackson’s grievance was the corrupt bargain, a conspiracy he claimed occurred in the 1824 election between his political rivals that kept him from the presidency and allowed those who participated in it to get ahead politically. Trump’s grievance was with the results of the 2020 election. Unlike Jackson, he places the blame not on any few individuals but instead on the election machine itself, claiming that his political enemies rigged the system, causing the voting to be miscounted and him to be robbed.

Both of these men, in their bids for re-election after a loss, used their grievances as a central point in their campaigns. What’s more, both Jackson and Trump, unwilling to accept their losses, stayed in the public sphere, officially and unofficially setting up their next campaigns. This strategy worked for Jackson; the people rallied around him and validated his grievance despite the lack of proof. He won the next election in a landslide victory, nearly doubling voter turnout as the people tried to right a “wrong” that had been done to him. Jackson had the advantage of the election he questioned, which was already contested. Because no candidate in the 1824 election was able to get a majority of the electoral votes, the decision went to the House. This system of a powerful few in control of the country stunk to many of elitism, a flavor of government not popular with the recently enfranchised non-property-owning white men. Therefore, despite the fact, or potentially not the fact (see Ratcliffe), that Jackson won the popular vote, the representatives of states he had won still voted against him. Therefore, even if no corrupt bargaining occurred, Jackson’s claims seem somewhat plausible given the unexpected and somewhat calculated results and the fact that once he became president, Adam did appoint Speaker of the House Clay to a high-ranking cabinet position, the very bargain Jackson accused the two of making.

Trump, on the other hand, despite the 60+ cases raised against the 2020 election results, has almost no grounds on which to build his grievance. There has been no evidence of election tampering nor any reason besides his claims to believe there has been, and while parts of Trump’s base still believe his 2020 grievances, the results of the 2022 midterms have made it apparent that election denying is a wildly unpopular position. According to CNN, nearly every election denier running in a swing state lost in 2022. Of course, the results of the 2024 election will show if Trump’s centered campaign ultimately proves successful or not, but based on the results already and the way in which Trump has somewhat conceded that he did lose the last election, it has become apparent that the similarity between the two presidents might end in rhetoric and not success.