A report on Political parties in the United States, Democratic Party (United States) and United States Electoral College

Popular votes to political parties during presidential elections.

Electoral votes, out of 538, allocated to each state and the District of Columbia for presidential elections to be held in 2024 and 2028, based on representation, which depends on population data from the 2020 census. Every jurisdiction is entitled to at least 3.

Political parties derivation. Dotted line means unofficially.

Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States (1829–1837) and the first Democratic president.

In the 2020 presidential election (held using 2010 census data) Joe Biden received 306 and Donald Trump 232 of the total 538 electoral votes.
In Maine (upper-right) and Nebraska (center), the small circled numbers indicate congressional districts. These are the only two states to use a district method for some of their allocated electors, instead of a complete winner-takes-all.

Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States (1837–1841) and the second Democratic president.

Cases of certificates of the electoral college votes confirming the results of the 2020 US election, after they had been removed from the House Chambers by congressional staff during the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack.

After the popular election in November, a state's Certificate of Ascertainment officially announces the state's electors for the Electoral College. The appointed Electoral College members later meet in the state capital in December to cast their votes.

The 1885 inauguration of Grover Cleveland, the only president with non-consecutive terms

Population per electoral vote for each state and Washington, D.C. (2010 census). By 2020 estimates, a single elector could represent more than 700,000 people or under 200,000.

Leaders of the Democratic Party during the first half of the 20th century on 14 June 1913: Secretary of State William J. Bryan, Josephus Daniels, President Woodrow Wilson, Breckinridge Long, William Phillips, and Franklin D. Roosevelt

When the state's electors meet in December, they cast their ballots and record their vote on a Certificate of Vote, which is then sent to the U.S. Congress. (From the election of 1876)

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, 32nd and 33rd presidents of the United States (1933–1945; 1945–1953), featured on a campaign poster for the 1944 presidential election

This cartogram shows the number of electors from each state for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Following the 2010 Census, New York and Ohio lost two electoral votes, 8 states lost one, 6 states gained one, Florida gained two, and Texas gained four.

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, 35th and 36th presidents of the United States (1961–1963, 1963–1969)

This graphic demonstrates how the winner of the popular vote can still lose in an electoral college system similar to the U.S. Electoral College.

Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States (1977–1981), delivering the State of the Union Address in 1979

Bar graph of popular votes in presidential elections (through 2020). Black stars mark the five cases where the winner did not have the plurality of the popular vote. Black squares mark the two cases where the electoral vote resulted in a tie, or the winner did not have the majority of electoral votes. An H marks each of two cases where the election was decided by the House; an S marks the one case where the election was finalized by the Supreme Court.

Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001), at The Pentagon in 1998

These maps show the amount of attention given to each state by the Bush and Kerry campaigns (combined) during the final five weeks of the 2004 election: each waving hand (purple map) represents a visit from a presidential or vice presidential candidate; each dollar sign (green map) represents one million dollars spent on TV advertising.

Barack Obama speaking to College Democrats of America in 2007

Half the U.S. population lives in 143 urban / suburban counties out of 3,143 counties or county equivalents (2019 American Community Survey)

President Barack Obama meeting with the Blue Dog Coalition in the State Dining Room of the White House in 2009

Eleanor Roosevelt at the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago

President Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law at the White House on March 23, 2010

Secretary of State John Kerry addressing delegates at the United Nations before signing the Paris Agreement on April 22, 2016

Shirley Chisholm was the first major-party African American candidate to run nationwide primary campaigns.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Immigration Act of 1965 as Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy and others look on

Then-Senator Barack Obama shaking hands with an American soldier in Basra, Iraq in 2008

President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with President Barack Obama at Ben Gurion Airport in 2013

Self-identified Democrats (blue) versus self-identified Republicans (red) (January–June 2010 data)

Higher percentages of Democrats than Republicans are members of union households.

Elected at age 33, Jon Ossoff is currently the youngest member of the U.S. Senate.

Hillary Clinton was the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg

Julián Castro served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

U.S. opinion on gun control issues is deeply divided along political lines, as shown in this 2021 survey.

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States.

- Democratic Party (United States)

In recent U.S. political history, political behavior correlates with the urban–rural political divide; whereby more voters living in urban areas gravitate towards the Democratic Party, voters living in more rural areas gravitate towards the Republican Party, whilst suburban electoral districts are battleground marginal seats which also influence the outcomes of battleground swing states in the Electoral College system of United States presidential elections.

- Political parties in the United States

Two major parties dominated the political landscape: the Whig Party, led by Henry Clay, that grew from the National Republican Party; and the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson.

- Political parties in the United States

The custom of allowing recognized political parties to select a slate of prospective electors developed early.

- United States Electoral College

They support reforming the electoral system to eliminate gerrymandering, abolishing the electoral college, as well as passing comprehensive campaign finance reform.

- Democratic Party (United States)

In 1848, Massachusetts statute awarded the state's electoral votes to the winner of the at-large popular vote, but only if that candidate won an absolute majority. When the vote produced no winner between the Democratic, Free Soil, and Whig parties, the state legislature selected the electors, giving all 12 electoral votes to the Whigs (which had won the plurality of votes in the state).

- United States Electoral College

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John Quincy Adams, the 6th president, became a Whig congressman later in his career.

Whig Party (United States)

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Political party that espoused traditionalist conservatism in the United States during the middle of the 19th century.

Henry Clay, a founder of the Whig Party in the 1830s and its 1844 presidential nominee

Daniel Webster, a leading Whig from New England

William Henry Harrison, a two-time presidential candidate who became the first Whig president in 1841 but died just one month into office

William Henry Harrison defeated Martin Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election, thereby becoming the first Whig president

President John Tyler clashed with congressional Whigs and was expelled from the party.

Zachary Taylor served in the Mexican-American War and later won the 1848 presidential election as the Whig nominee.

The United States settled the Texas-Mexico border and acquired portions of seven current states in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Portions of present-day Arizona and New Mexico were later acquired in the 1853 Gadsden Purchase.

A political cartoon satirizing the candidacy of either Zachary Taylor or Winfield Scott in the 1848 presidential election

Millard Fillmore, the last Whig president

Gen. Winfield Scott, the unsuccessful Whig candidate in the 1852 presidential election

John J. Crittenden, an influential Whig leader who later established the short-lived Constitutional Union Party to contest the election of 1860

U.S. presidential election results from 1828 to 1852. Darker shades of blue indicate states that generally voted for the Democratic Party, while darker shades of yellow/brown indicate states that generally voted for the Whig or National Republican Party.

Charles Sumner, an anti-slavery "Conscience Whig" who later joined the Republican Party

Edward Everett, a pro-South "Cotton Whig"

Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig congressman, won the 1860 presidential election on the Republican ticket.

John Marshall Harlan, who began his career as a Whig officeholder, served on the Supreme Court from 1877 to 1911.

Alongside the slightly larger Democratic Party, it was one of the two major parties in the United States between the late 1830s and the early 1850s as part of the Second Party System.

In the 1836 presidential election, four different regional Whig candidates received electoral votes, but the party failed to defeat Jackson's chosen successor, Martin Van Buren.

Democratic-Republican Party

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Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in the 1800 presidential election, thereby becoming the first Democratic-Republican president.

The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 totaled 827,987 sqmi, doubling the size of the United States.

Albert Gallatin served as Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Jefferson and Madison.

James Monroe, the third Democratic-Republican president

Four Democratic-Republicans sought the presidency in 1824: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay.

John Quincy Adams won the 1824 presidential election as a Democratic-Republican after leaving the Federalist Party earlier in his career.

Presidential election results from 1796 to 1824. Darker shades of green indicate that the state generally supported the Democratic-Republicans, and darker shades of brown indicate that the state generally supported the Federalists.

John Randolph of Roanoke was a prominent member of a group of Southern plantation owners known as the Old Republicans.

Andrew Jackson led a faction of Democratic-Republicans that ultimately coalesced into the Democratic Party.

The Democratic-Republican Party, also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party and known at the time as the Republican Party and occasional other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s that championed republicanism, agrarianism, political equality, and expansionism.

In the 1788–89 presidential election, the first such election following the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788, George Washington won the votes of every member of the Electoral College.

Some argue that the party is not to be confused with the present-day Democratic Party, however, a direct historical political lineage between them is often affirmed by some historians, political scientists, commentators, and by modern Democrats, reinforcing both names' continued and occasionally interchangeable use.

President of the United States

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Head of state and head of government of the United States of America.

George Washington, the first president of the United States

President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers a radio address, 1933

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act as Martin Luther King Jr. and others look on

President Donald Trump delivers his 2018 State of the Union Address, with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Gorbachev sign the 1990 Chemical Weapons Accord in the White House.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, successfully preserved the Union during the American Civil War.

President Barack Obama with his Supreme Court appointee Justice Sotomayor, 2009

President Ronald Reagan reviews honor guards during a state visit to China, 1984

President Woodrow Wilson throws out the ceremonial first ball on Opening Day, 1916

President Jimmy Carter (left) debates Republican nominee Ronald Reagan on October 28, 1980.

Map of the United States showing the number of electoral votes allocated following the 2010 census to each state and the District of Columbia for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential elections; it also notes that Maine and Nebraska distribute electors by way of the congressional district method. 270 electoral votes are required for a majority out of 538 votes possible.

Franklin D. Roosevelt won a record four presidential elections (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), leading to the adoption of a two-term limit.

President William McKinley and his successor, Theodore Roosevelt

President Reagan surrounded by Secret Service

From left: George H. W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. Photo taken in the Oval Office on January 7, 2009; Obama formally took office thirteen days later.

Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, 2013

The presidential limousine, dubbed "The Beast"

The presidential plane, called Air Force One when the president is on board

Marine One helicopter, when the president is aboard

The president is elected indirectly through the Electoral College to a four-year term, along with the vice president.

Nominees participate in nationally televised debates, and while the debates are usually restricted to the Democratic and Republican nominees, third party candidates may be invited, such as Ross Perot in the 1992 debates.

They typically vote for the candidates of the party that nominated them.

State races by 2020 United States presidential election margin.

Swing state

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In American politics, the term swing state (or battleground state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to presidential elections, by a swing in votes.

Due to the winner-take-all method most states use to determine their presidential electors, candidates often campaign only in competitive states, which is why a select group of states frequently receives a majority of the advertisements and candidate visits.

A campaign strategy centered on them, however, would not have been meaningful in the Electoral College, as Democratic nominee Walter Mondale required victories in many more states than Massachusetts, Republican Ronald Reagan still would have won by a large margin.

However, this projection was not specific to any particular election cycle, and assumed similar levels of support for both parties.