I don’t know if he’ll run in 2024 or not. But if he does, I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination.”

So says Mitt Romney. Is it possible Trump could win the nomination in 2024? What does history teach us about Republican presidents who, after losing the White House, come back to win it again? Well, to be frank, there is no such history. Four Republican presidents in the 20th century were defeated while seeking a second term. None was nominated again.

William Howard Taft lost the White House to Woodrow Wilson in 1912. After President Herbert Hoover lost to FDR in 1932, he never ran again. Gerald Ford, serving out Nixon’s second term, lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976 and packed it in for good. George H. W. Bush lost the White House in 1992 and retired from electoral politics, never to run again.

As for Trump running in 2024 and winning the GOP nomination, he does hold high cards no other ex-president held, except perhaps Roosevelt.

Trump has a vast and loyal following. Three-fourths of all Republicans see him as their leader. He won 74 million votes, the highest total ever for a sitting president or a losing presidential candidate. Their loyalty is traceable to what Trump achieved, whom and how he fought, and the issues he introduced and has become indelibly associated. Foremost among these is his struggle to secure the Southern border against endless illegal migrant crossings. Trump also succeeded in enacting the traditional GOP platform of low taxes and deregulation, producing record-low unemployment — before the pandemic hit in March 2020. His record of elevating strict constructionists, constitutionalists and conservatives to the federal courts, and three Supreme Court seats, is unrivaled in the history of the modern Republican Party. He replaced a free trade globalist ideology with nationalism. He set out to rebuild America’s depleted manufacturing base and restore her economic independence. Under Trump, the slogan “America First” came to represent a new foreign policy where allies carried more of the burden of their own and the common defense. He wanted Americans to do their nation-building here in the USA. He did drawdown U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and keep us out of an all-out war with Iran. There is thus a specific Trumpian agenda that is becoming the issues agenda of the conservative movement and the party base. Yet, the drawbacks to a Trump nomination remain major. He did lose in 2020. And he has been damaged by the months-long battle since to prove Biden was the beneficiary of a stolen election. The Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by MAGA militants was blamed on Trump and became the article of his second impeachment where every Democratic senator and six Republicans voted to convict him. And even some of those who voted to acquit, like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, declared him guilty of inciting the mob. Moreover, Trump faces a blizzard of legal challenges and charges that will damage his reputation, his businesses and him, personally. In 2024, Trump will turn 78, the age Joe Biden is today. And between now and 2024, there is sure to be considerable attrition in support among the 74 million who voted for Trump. But if Romney is right and Trump has the kind of strength that could make him the nominee in 2024, that strength will be sufficient to sink any nominee who does not have the former president’s blessing. Does not Trump appear likely to be the Republican leader of his party than does slow-moving “Sleepy Joe” look like the Democratic nominee 44 months from now?

Pat Buchanan is a nationally syndicated author.