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A perennial candidate is a political candidate who runs for elected office many times and rarely, if ever, win and election.
Perennial candidates are seen where there is no limit on how many times a person can run for office or costs little to register as a candidate.
Some have called a candidate a "perennial candidate" for elected office when they have lost two to three times, and then decide to run a campaign again. However, some articles have listed a number of exceptions.
...Harold Stassen is remembered as the "Grand Old Party's Grand Old Loser"—the onetime "Boy Governor" who ran for president 10 times between 1948 and 1992—a "perennial, never-say-die candidate" whose quixotic, lifetime quest for the White House obscured an otherwise brilliant public career.
For the purposes of this story, we are defining the perennial presidential candidate as someone who runs for — and loses — the race to the White House at least twice. And then runs again.
[Mohsen Rezai] has stood three times as president, and never held public office, having also failed in a bid to be elected to parliament in 2000. He is commonly referred to as a "perennial candidate".
...both O'Rourke and Crist are risking their political credibility if they run again and lose, as they've already failed to win two consecutive runs for office. Even worse, they could be marked as perennial candidates.
Henry Clay, whom Abraham Lincoln called his "beau ideal of a statesman," ran for president four times. No one remembers him as a joke. William Jennings Bryan was a three-time Democratic presidential nominee. Also not a joke. Adlai Stevenson, twice nominated. Hubert Humphrey, Stassen's fellow Minnesotan, ran three times. Ronald Reagan lost the GOP nomination in 1968 and 1976 before his victory in 1980. Definitely not a joke.
