Thesecond-term curse is the perceived tendency of second termU.S. presidents to be less successful than their first terms.^[1][2]

According to the curse, the second terms of U.S. presidents have usually been plagued by a major scandal, policy inertia, some sort of catastrophe, or other problems.^[3][4][5] There have been twenty-one U.S. presidents who have served a second term,^[6] each of whom has faced difficulties attributed to the curse.^{[citation needed]} The legend behind the second-term curse is that afterFranklin D. Roosevelt broke thede facto second term limit by running for third and fourth terms, the ghost ofGeorge Washington might have put a curse on any president who seeks a second term.^[4][5] This legend notwithstanding, several presidents who served prior to this, including Washington and Roosevelt themselves, were plagued by problems in their second term more serious than in their first.^[2]

Whether this perceived tendency is real is a subject of dispute: for example, political statisticianNate Silver, after analyzingpresidential approval ratings forHarry S. Truman throughBarack Obama, did find that approval ratings were lower on average during second terms, but he also found a variety of other reasons to explain those ratings, such asregression toward the mean, and he concluded that "the idea of the second-term curse is sloppy as an analytical concept".^[7] In addition, political writerMichael Barone cited several presidents who had successful second terms, and wrote that "second-term problems resulted more often from the failure to adjust to changed circumstances and unanticipated challenges".^[2] Conversely, a 2013 report inThe Economist has said that the existence of the second-term curse is supported by data. The report stated that each of the eleven second terms served from the beginning of theTheodore Roosevelt administration to the end of theGeorge W. Bush administration were less economically prosperous than their respective president's first term, save for the second terms of Truman,Ronald Reagan, andBill Clinton.^[8] However, these findings could be due to the effect ofsurvivorship bias; presidents who are elected for a second term are more likely to have had a good first term, making their second term look worse by comparison.

President		Second term	Attributed event(s)
	George Washington	1793–1797	Ramifications of theFrench Revolutionary Wars[2] Controversy over his signing of theJay Treaty[1] Fatigue due to political infighting[9]
	Thomas Jefferson	1805–1809	Burr conspiracy[6] Embargo Act of 1807[2]
	James Madison	1813–1817	Burning of Washington[2]
	James Monroe	1821–1825	Congressional rejection of his anti-slavery efforts[6]
	Andrew Jackson	1833–1837	Events in theBank War which laid the groundwork for thePanic of 1837[10]
	Abraham Lincoln	1865	His assassination[11]
	Ulysses S. Grant	1873–1877	Panic of 1873[6] Failure of hisReconstruction efforts to uphold the rights of Southern African-Americans[2] Numerous scandals[9]
	Grover Cleveland	1893–1897[note 1]	Personal struggles withoral cancer[11] Panic of 1893[6]
	William McKinley	1901	His assassination[2]
	Theodore Roosevelt	1905–1909[note 2]	The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Woodrow Wilson	1917–1921	U.S. entry intoWorld War I[2] Unpopularity stemming from his refusal to accept reservations to theTreaty of Versailles,[2] leading to theSenate's rejection of the treaty Failure to get the U.S. to join theLeague of Nations[9] Suffered a stroke[9] Controversy over theEspionage Act of 1917 and theSedition Act of 1918 The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Calvin Coolidge	1925–1929[note 2]	The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Franklin D. Roosevelt	1937–1941	Failure of the "court-packing plan"[1] The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Harry S. Truman	1949–1953[note 2]	Korean War[12] Controversy over hisrelief of General Douglas MacArthur[13]
	Dwight D. Eisenhower	1957–1961	Overcoat scandal[1] 1960 U-2 incident[1][5] The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Lyndon B. Johnson	1965–1969[note 2]	Vietnam War[12] Reaction to theGreat Society[12] Urban riots and theKerner Commission[12] Loss of Wisconsin primary toEugene McCarthy and hiswithdrawal from the 1968 presidential election[6] The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Richard Nixon	1973–1974[note 3]	Watergate scandal and subsequent resignation[4][12] The U.S. economy was not as strong as it was during his first term.[8]
	Ronald Reagan	1985–1989	Iran–Contra affair[1][4]
	Bill Clinton	1997–2001	Paula Jones lawsuit[7] Lewinsky scandal and subsequentimpeachment[1][4] Pardon controversy[14]
	George W. Bush	2005–2009	Failure of Social Security reform[3] Hurricane Katrina[15] Indictment ofScooter Libby during thePlame affair[13] 2008 financial crisis[16]
	Barack Obama	2013–2017	Edward Snowden leaks[14] United States federal government shutdown of 2013[11] IRS targeting controversy[17] David Petraeus'affair and guilty plea[18] FailedSupreme Court nomination ofMerrick Garland.[19]

• Curse of Tippecanoe
• Six-year itch

• Curses
• Presidency of the United States
• Political terminology of the United States
• United States presidential history

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• Short description matches Wikidata
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