How many US Presidents have resigned from office?

The pressure from fellow Democrats and donor to drop out of the 2024 race finally became too much for President Joe Biden to bear. After his horrible debate performance in June, the 81-year-old failed to reestablish confidence amongst the ever growing contigent of those concerned about his chances of winning in November.

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While he won’t continue his campaign to return to the White House for another four years, he will still call it home until the peaceful transfer of power in January 2025. There has only been one US president who has voluntarily brought their time in the White House to an early end by resigning the office.

That was Richard Nixon, who was forced out of the White House after the Watergate scandal came to light. Nixon had secured re-election but was forced to resign two years into his second term. He was replaced by his vice president, Gerald Ford.

Nixon’s party turned on him after the Watergate scandal became a national story, tanking the party’s reputation in Washington.

READ MORE: How many US Presidents have not sought re-election?

What is the Watergate Scandal?

On June 17, 1972, at 2:30 am, five men were arrested for attempting to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel and Office Complex, three and a half years into Richard Nixon’s first term as president of the United States. The scandal is named for the hotel in Georgetown, a ritzy neighborhood in Washington DC.

After months of investigations, it was revealed that the Watergate break-in was part of a large campaign of political spying and sabotage carried out to improve the already high chances that Nixon would win re-election. Nixon won re-election with a historic 60% landslide in November.

Nixon was quite paranoid about the election of 1972, having lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960. In 1962, he also lost his bid to become Governor of California, his home state, to Democrat Pat Brown. Although he won in 1972, his second term was marred by revelations from former aides and confidants, indicating that he was aware of the Watergate burglary and had recorded all conversations in his offices.

This led to subpoenas, erased audio segments, and eventual impeachment by the House of Representatives. At that point, Congressional leaders told Nixon that he ought to resign because they could not protect him during the Senate trial.

On August 8, 1974, Nixon became the first president to resign, and one of Ford’s first acts would be to pardon him for all Watergate-related charges. In 2003, a central figure in the scandal claimed that Nixon had personally ordered the burglary of the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex.