Four candidates to the Mashiach title who predate Jesus, all of whom actually having fulfilled the title in some way:
King David
Now, I know. It's not fair giving David this title, considering he predates all the prophecies about the Mashiach. Plus, he was only called Mashiach once. Sha’ul, on the other hand, was called "Meshiach [Hashem]" nine times, by David himself. But Sha’ul failed on some other metrics. David reunited the kingdom after the collapse of Sha’ul's house, if we conveniently ignore how he created the schism technically. He was anointed by a prophet on G-d's command to be king - the last of his house to be anointed this way, since the only other people to get this honor are Sha’ul and Yehu. David brought the Ark of Covenant to Jerusalem and prepared the ground for his son building the Temple, fought the enemies of Israel and brought about an age of prosperity. He checks a lot of the boxes we'd require of the Mashiach, which is probably why some Midrashim claim that the Mashiach will be David himself, not just one of his descendants.
King Ḥizkiyah
All right. Here, we get to the first guy who comes after a couple of prophecies. He's a king of the Davidic line, he's righteous, and some of Isaiah's prophecies can be interpreted about him. Like Isaiah 9, 5: "for a child has been born to us...", is commonly interpreted in Judaism to be about Ḥizkiyah. Now, Yehudah wasn't as prosperous as one might hope during his reign, but they were miraculously saved from a foreign army. According to some sources he attempted to gather the remnants of the Kingdom of Yisra’el, which was just exiled in his time, to celebrate Pesach with Yehudah in Jerusalem! An Amora in the Talmud even openly claims: Yisra’el don't have a Mashiach anymore; they had him during the days of Ḥizkiyah (Sanhedrin 99A). However, some of the prophecies are later even than that. Plus, Ḥizkiyah did not song G-d's praises after being saved, so he's a bit iffy.
King Yo’shiyahu
Now there you have a proper Mashiach! Foreign altars-removing, idol-banishing, pagan priests' bones-burning, kingdom-uniting Mashiach! Megido isn't even a part of Yehudah and he went to fight there! And before that, he did his best to clear Yisra’el and Yehudah from idol worship and altars outside the Temple, made a Pesach that was greater than anything before him... Legend. He's the third one in the Tanach to be called "Meshiach [Hashem]"! ...That is, after his death, assuming this particular lament in Lamentations is about him. Every king after his is pretty disappointing. Sadly, he died while fighting Pharaoh Necho in a completely unnecessary battle. You see, the Pharaoh was headed to help his old rivals the Assyrians against the rising middle eastern star - the Neo-Babylonian empire. None of this had anything to do with Yoshiyahu. But he either got it into his mind that no armed forces may go through his land (including grounds that used to belong to the Kingdom of Yisra’el), or thought he could help Babylon by delaying Pharaoh. In the end it didn't matter - Yoshiyahu lost in Megido and died there, while Pharaoh lost in Carchemish, bitterly returned to Egypt, instated a new king in Yehudah on his way - only to be attacked by Nebuchadnezzar later, and not sending armies outside of Egypt for the next few generations. So, Nebuchadnezzar was the ultimate winner of it all, subjugating Yehudah and humiliating Egypt.
Zerubavel ben Sha’alti’el
Yes, it's the first person in this list to not be a king, but hear me out. Firstly, he's a direct descendants of all the previous people: Sha’alti’el is (according to Chronicles) the son of Yechonyah, son of Yehoyakim, son of Yoshiyahu. And sure, I can go on to Ḥizkiyah and David, but it would be exhausting and you should already know they're all descended from each other. Ḥizkiyah is Yoshiyahu's great-grandfather, if you must know.
Zerubavel was appointed by Coresh (Cyrus the Great) to be responsible for the return from Exile. Depending how you read things, he may even have been appointed local ruler. He wasn't a king, though. Yahud Medinta was a province of the Achaemenid Empire, not a client kingdom. It also did not include the entirety of the old Kingdom of Yehudah. But it was what Zerubavel and the people coming with him got. Zerubavel brought Jews back from the Exile to their ancestral land; he rebuilt the Temple; he's directly mentioned by prophets talking about the Mashiach... But he wasn't independent. He wasn't a king. And thus, some of the prophecies didn't actually get fulfilled in him - though some of them were fulfilled in one of his aforementioned ancestors.
Yeshua‘ ben Yosef, in the meantime, was none of those. He wasn't king, since Herod was king at the time. He was no leader either, as he only had a very specific group of followers. He didn't build or renovate the Temple - just attempted to make some changes, the necessarily of which is arguable and the success of which is nonexistent. And don't start pulling the whole "man without sin" on me, please. It has literally no source in the Tanach.
So there you have it: four people predating Jesus who are way more likely to be the Mashiach. I can go on to a number of figures later who could attempt to fulfil this role, but hardly any of them was as successful as these four, so I think I'll leave it at that.
