Donald Trump's loss means he is set to join a club he will not be happy to be a member of - that of the single-term president.

Trump is the first president since George HW Bush to lose a re-election campaign.

Since 1933, only Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford - and now Trump - have been beaten in a general election while occupying the White House.

George HW Bush's time in office coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and his popularity soared in the wake of the first Gulf War.

However, a protracted economic recession on his watch saw him break a pledge not to raise taxes ("Read my lips..."), provoking fierce hostility from within his own Republican party. With Ross Perot, a third-party candidate, splitting the vote in the 1992 election, Bush's attempts to win re-election were thwarted by the charismatic Democrat Bill Clinton.

Jimmy Carter - now 96 years old - is the only living man who knows what it's like to lose after your first term.

He was unfortunate enough to take office at a time when the global economy was in turmoil, while Gerald Ford - who assumed office after Richard Nixon's resignation - only had two and a half years to make an impact, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.