History of the United States Democratic Party

The Democratic Party is the oldest voter-based political party in the world and the oldest existing political party in the United States, tracing its heritage back to the anti-Federalists and the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party of the 1790s.^[1][2][3] During the Second Party System (from 1832 to the mid-1850s) under Presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, the Democrats usually bested the opposition Whig Party by narrow margins. Both parties worked hard to build grassroots organizations and maximize the turnout of voters, which often reached 80 percent or 90 percent. Both parties used patronage extensively to finance their operations, which included emerging big city political machines as well as national networks of newspapers. The Democratic Party was a proponent for slave-owners across the country, urban workers and caucasian immigrants.

From 1860 to 1932 in the era of the Civil War to the Great Depression, the opposing Republican Party, organized in the mid-1850s from the ruins of the Whig Party and some other smaller splinter groups, was dominant in presidential politics. The Democrats elected only two Presidents to four terms of office for 72 years: Grover Cleveland (in 1884 and 1892) and Woodrow Wilson (in 1912 and 1916). Over the same period, the Democrats proved more competitive with the Republicans in Congressional politics, enjoying House of Representatives majorities (as in the 65th Congress) in 15 of the 36 Congresses elected, although only in five of these did they form the majority in the Senate. The party was split between the Bourbon Democrats, representing Eastern business interests; and the agrarian elements comprising poor farmers in the South and West. The agrarian element, marching behind the slogan of "free silver" (i.e. in favor of inflation), captured the party in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan in 1896, 1900 and 1908, though he lost every time. Both Bryan and Wilson were leaders of the Progressive Movement (1890s–1920s).

Andrew Jackson, founder of the Democratic Party and the first President to be elected from the Democratic Party (1829–1837)

Starting with 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 during the Great Depression, the party dominated the Fifth Party System, with its progressive liberal policies and programs with the New Deal coalition to combat the emergency bank closings and the continuing financial depression since the famous Wall Street Crash of 1929 and later going into the crises leading up to World War II. The Democrats and the Democratic Party finally lost the White House and control of the executive branch of government only after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 near the end of the war and after the continuing post-war administration of Roosevelt's third Vice President Harry S. Truman, former Senator from Missouri (for 1945 to 1953, elections of 1944 and the "stunner" of 1948). A new Republican Party President was only elected later in the following decade of the early 1950s with the losses by two-time nominee, the Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson (grandson of the former Vice President with the same name of the 1890s) to the very popular war hero and commanding general in World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (in 1952 and 1956).

With two brief interruptions since the Great Depression and World War II eras, the Democrats with unusually large majorities for over four decades, controlled the lower house of the Congress in the House of Representatives from 1930 until 1994 and the Senate for most of that same period, electing the Speaker of the House and the Representatives' majority leaders/committee chairs along with the upper house of the Senate's majority leaders and committee chairmen. Important Democratic progressive/liberal leaders included 33rd and 36th Presidents Harry S. Truman of Missouri (1945–1953) and Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas (1963–1969), respectively; and the earlier Kennedy brothers of 35th President John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts (1961–1963), Senators Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts who carried the flag for modern American liberalism. Since the presidential election of 1976, Democrats have won five out of the last eleven presidential elections, winning in the presidential elections of 1976 (with 39th President Jimmy Carter of Georgia, 1977–1981), 1992 and 1996 (with 42nd President Bill Clinton of Arkansas, 1993–2001) and 2008 and 2012 (with 44th President Barack Obama of Illinois, 2009–2017). Democrats have also won the popular vote in 2000 and 2016, but lost the Electoral College with Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, respectively. The 1876 and 1888 elections were other two presidential elections in which Democrats won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College (the Democrats candidates were Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland). Social scientists Theodore Caplow et al. argue that "the Democratic party, nationally, moved from left-center toward the center in the 1940s and 1950s, then moved further toward the right-center in the 1970s and 1980s".^[4]

Presidency of John Quincy Adams (1825–1829)

The modern Democratic Party emerged in the late 1820s from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party, which had largely collapsed by 1824. It was built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled a cadre of politicians in every state behind war hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.^[5]

Presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837)

Jacksonian democracy

Main article: Jacksonian democracy

1837 cartoon shows the Democratic Party as donkey

The spirit of Jacksonian democracy animated the party from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the Second Party System, with the Whig Party the main opposition. After the disappearance of the Federalists after 1815 and the Era of Good Feelings (1816–1824), there was a hiatus of weakly organized personal factions until about 1828–1832, when the modern Democratic Party emerged along with its rival the Whigs. The new Democratic Party became a coalition of farmers, city-dwelling laborers and Irish Catholics.^[6]

Behind the party platforms, acceptance speeches of candidates, editorials, pamphlets and stump speeches, there was a widespread consensus of political values among Democrats. As Norton explains:

The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society. They viewed the central government as the enemy of individual liberty. The 1824 "corrupt bargain" had strengthened their suspicion of Washington politics. [...] Jacksonians feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that government intervention in the economy benefited special-interest groups and created corporate monopolies that favored the rich. They sought to restore the independence of the individual – the artisan and the ordinary farmer – by ending federal support of banks and corporations and restricting the use of paper currency, which they distrusted. Their definition of the proper role of government tended to be negative, and Jackson's political power was largely expressed in negative acts. He exercised the veto more than all previous presidents combined. Jackson and his supporters also opposed reform as a movement. Reformers eager to turn their programs into legislation called for a more active government. But Democrats tended to oppose programs like educational reform mid the establishment of a public education system. They believed, for instance, that public schools restricted individual liberty by interfering with parental responsibility and undermined freedom of religion by replacing church schools. Nor did Jackson share reformers' humanitarian concerns. He had no sympathy for American Indians, initiating the removal of the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears.^[7]

The party was weakest in New England, but strong everywhere else and won most national elections thanks to strength in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia (by far the most populous states at the time) and the American frontier. Democrats opposed elites and aristocrats, the Bank of the United States and the whiggish modernizing programs that would build up industry at the expense of the yeoman or independent small farmer.^[8]

Historian Frank Towers has specified an important ideological divide:

Democrats stood for the 'sovereignty of the people' as expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions, and majority rule as a general principle of governing, whereas Whigs advocated the rule of law, written and unchanging constitutions, and protections for minority interests against majority tyranny.^[9]

From 1828 to 1848, banking and tariffs were the central domestic policy issues. Democrats strongly favored—and Whigs opposed—expansion to new farm lands, as typified by their expulsion of eastern American Indians and acquisition of vast amounts of new land in the West after 1846. The party favored the war with Mexico and opposed anti-immigrant nativism. Both Democrats and Whigs were divided on the issue of slavery. In the 1830s, the Locofocos in New York City were radically democratic, anti-monopoly and were proponents of hard money and free trade.^[10][11] Their chief spokesman was William Leggett. At this time, labor unions were few and some were loosely affiliated with the party.^[12]

Presidency of Martin Van Buren (1837–1841)

Martin Van Buren was key in the development of the Democratic Party, although his presidency featured many setbacks. Many of the policies of Jackson had repercussions while Van Buren held office, such as the Trail of Tears. The policies enacted during Jackson came into full swing during Van Buren, who oversaw the displacement of thousands of Native Americans. In addition to this, Van Buren was anti-slavery and represented a divide in both parties. Despite this, he did almost nothing to help the abolitionist movement, and his presidency saw a continuation of pro-slavery legislation. Jackson's decision to abolish the Second Bank of the United States led to the Panic of 1837 during Van Buren's presidency, leading to disapproval by the public, and loss of power for his party.

Presidency of William H. Harrison & John Tyler (1841–1845)

The Panic of 1837 led to Van Buren and the Democrats' drop in popularity. The Whigs nominated William Henry Harrison as their candidate for the 1840 presidential race. Harrison won, as the first president of the Whigs. A month later he died in office and was succeeded by his vice president John Tyler. Tyler had recently left the Democrats for the Whigs, and because of this, his beliefs did not align much with the Whig party. During his presidency, he vetoed many of his own party's bills, leading to his own party disowning him. This allowed for the Democrats to retake power in 1845.

Presidency of James K. Polk (1845–1849)

Foreign policy was a major issue in the 1840s as war threatened with Mexico over Texas and with Britain over Oregon. Democrats strongly supported Manifest Destiny and most Whigs strongly opposed it. The 1844 election was a showdown, with the Democrat James K. Polk narrowly defeating Whig Henry Clay on the Texas issue.^[13]

John Mack Faragher's analysis of the political polarization between the parties is:

Most Democrats were wholehearted supporters of expansion, whereas many Whigs (especially in the North) were opposed. Whigs welcomed most of the changes wrought by industrialization but advocated strong government policies that would guide growth and development within the country's existing boundaries; they feared (correctly) that expansion raised a contentious issue the extension of slavery to the territories. On the other hand, many Democrats feared industrialization the Whigs welcomed. [...] For many Democrats, the answer to the nation's social ills was to continue to follow Thomas Jefferson's vision of establishing agriculture in the new territories in order to counterbalance industrialization.^[14]

Presidency of Zachary Taylor (1849–1850)

Though Zachary Taylor was a Whig, his lack of identifiable party beliefs and Democratic majorities in Congress kept the Whig party platform from supplanting the Democrats.

Presidency of Millard Fillmore (1850–1853)

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) was created in 1848 at the convention that nominated General Lewis Cass, who lost to General Zachary Taylor of the Whigs. A major cause of the defeat was that the new Free Soil Party, which opposed slavery expansion, split the Democratic Party, particularly in New York, where the electoral votes went to Taylor. Democrats in Congress passed the Compromise of 1850 designed to put the slavery issue to rest while resolves issued involving territories gained following the War with Mexico. However, in state after state the Democrats gained small but permanent advantages over the Whig Party, which finally collapsed in 1852, fatally weakened by division on slavery and nativism. The fragmented opposition could not stop the election of Democrats Franklin Pierce in 1852 and James Buchanan in 1856.^[15]

Presidency of Franklin Pierce (1853–1857)

Franklin Pierce was a talented politician, but his Southern advisers and lack of clear convictions helped lead to the Kansas Nebraska Act and the splitting of the Democratic Party in the years ahead.

Presidency of James Buchanan (1857–1861)

During 1858–1860, Senator Stephen A. Douglas confronted President Buchanan in a furious battle for control of the party. Douglas finally won, but his nomination signaled defeat for the Southern wing of the party and it walked out of the 1860 convention and nominated its own presidential ticket.^[16]

North and South pull apart

The crisis for the Democratic Party came in the late 1850s as Democrats increasingly rejected national policies demanded by the Southern Democrats. The demands were to support slavery outside the South. Southerners insisted that full equality for their region required the government to acknowledge the legitimacy of slavery outside the South. The Southern demands included a fugitive slave law to recapture runaway slaves; opening Kansas to slavery; forcing a pro-slavery constitution on Kansas; acquire Cuba (where slavery already existed); accepting the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court; and adopting a federal slave code to protect slavery in the territories. President Buchanan went along with these demands, but Douglas refused and proved a much better politician than Buchanan, though the bitter battle lasted for years and permanently alienated the Northern and Southern wings.^[21]

When the new Republican Party formed in 1854 on the basis of refusing to tolerate the expansion of slavery into the territories, many northern Democrats (especially Free Soilers from 1848) joined it. The Republicans in 1854 now had a majority in most, but not all of the Northern states and it had practically no support South of the Mason–Dixon line. The formation of the new short-lived Know-Nothing Party allowed the Democrats to win the presidential election of 1856.^[20] Buchanan, a Northern "Doughface" (his base of support was in the pro-slavery South), split the party on the issue of slavery in Kansas when he attempted to pass a federal slave code as demanded by the South. Most Democrats in the North rallied to Senator Douglas, who preached "Popular Sovereignty" and believed that a Federal slave code would be undemocratic.^[22]

The Democratic Party was unable to compete with the Republican Party, which controlled nearly all northern states by 1860, bringing a solid majority in the Electoral College. The Republicans claimed that the Northern Democrats, including Doughfaces such as Pierce and Buchanan, as well as advocates of popular sovereignty such as Stephen A. Douglas and Lewis Cass, were all accomplices to Slave Power. The Republicans argued that slaveholders (all of them Democrats) had seized control of the federal government and were blocking the progress of liberty.^[23]

To vote for Stephen A. Douglas in Virginia, a man deposited the ticket issued by the party in the official ballot box

In 1860, the Democrats were unable to stop the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, even as they feared his election would lead to civil war. The Democrats split over the choice of a successor to President Buchanan along Northern and Southern lines: factions of the party provided two separate candidacies for President in the election of 1860, in which the Republican Party gained ascendancy.^[24]

Some Southern Democratic delegates followed the lead of the Fire-Eaters by walking out of the Democratic National Convention at Charleston's Institute Hall in April 1860 and were later joined by those who, once again led by the Fire-Eaters, left the Baltimore Convention the following June when the convention rejected a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it. The Southern Democrats nominated the pro-slavery incumbent Vice President, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for President and General Joseph Lane, former governor of Oregon, for Vice President.^[25]

The Northern Democrats proceeded to nominate Douglas of Illinois for President and former Governor of Georgia Herschel Vespasian Johnson for Vice President, while some southern Democrats joined the Constitutional Union Party, backing its nominees (who had both been prominent Whig leaders), former Senator John Bell of Tennessee for President and the politician Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President. This fracturing of the Democrats left them powerless. Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United States. Douglas campaigned across the country calling for unity and came in second in the popular vote, but carried only Missouri and New Jersey. Breckinridge carried 11 slave states, coming in second in the Electoral vote, but third in the popular vote.^[25]

Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865)

Presidency of Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)

Thomas Nast's January 1870 depiction of the Democratic donkey

In the 1866 elections, the Radical Republicans won two-thirds majorities in Congress and took control of national affairs. The large Republican majorities made Congressional Democrats helpless, though they unanimously opposed the Radicals' Reconstruction policies.^[28] Realizing that the old issues were holding it back, the Democrats tried a "New Departure" that downplayed the War and stressed such issues as corruption and white supremacy.

Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877)

Regardless, war hero Ulysses S. Grant led the Republicans to landslides in 1868 and 1872.^[29]

Presidency of James A. Garfield (1881–1881)

President Garfield's early death from an assassin led to both parties being willing to accept more civil service reform.

Presidency of Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885)

The Democrats lost consecutive presidential elections from 1860 through 1880 (1876 was in dispute) and did not win the presidency until 1884. The party was weakened by its record of opposition to the war, but nevertheless benefited from White Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. The nationwide depression of 1873 allowed the Democrats to retake control of the House in the 1874 Democratic landslide.

The Redeemers gave the Democrats control of every Southern state (by the Compromise of 1877), but the disenfranchisement of blacks took place (1880–1900). From 1880 to 1960, the "Solid South" voted Democratic in presidential elections (except 1928). After 1900, a victory in a Democratic primary was "tantamount to election" because the Republican Party was so weak in the South.

Presidency of Grover Cleveland (1885–1889)

Although Republicans continued to control the White House until 1884, the Democrats remained competitive (especially in the mid-Atlantic and lower Midwest) and controlled the House of Representatives for most of that period. In the election of 1884, Grover Cleveland, the reforming Democratic Governor of New York, won the Presidency, a feat he repeated in 1892, having lost in the election of 1888.

Typewriters were new in 1893 and this Gillam cartoon from Puck shows that Grover Cleveland can not get the Democratic "machine" to work as the keys (key politicians) will not respond to his efforts

Cleveland was the leader of the Bourbon Democrats. They represented business interests, supported banking and railroad goals, promoted laissez-faire capitalism, opposed imperialism and U.S. overseas expansion, opposed the annexation of Hawaii, fought for the gold standard and opposed Bimetallism. They strongly supported reform movements such as Civil Service Reform and opposed corruption of city bosses, leading the fight against the Tweed Ring.

The leading Bourbons included Samuel J. Tilden, David Bennett Hill and William C. Whitney of New York, Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Henry M. Mathews and William L. Wilson of West Virginia, John Griffin Carlisle of Kentucky, William F. Vilas of Wisconsin, J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, John M. Palmer of Illinois, Horace Boies of Iowa, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar of Mississippi and railroad builder James J. Hill of Minnesota. A prominent intellectual was Woodrow Wilson.^[30]

Presidency of Grover Cleveland (1893–1897)

The Bourbons were in power when the Panic of 1893 hit and they took the blame. A fierce struggle inside the party ensued, with catastrophic losses for both the Bourbon and agrarian factions in 1894, leading to the showdown in 1896. Just before the 1894 election, President Cleveland was warned by an advisor:

We are on the eve of very dark night, unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent with what they believe Democratic incompetence to make laws, and consequently with Democratic Administrations anywhere and everywhere.^[31]

The warning was appropriate, for the Republicans won their biggest landslide in decades, taking full control of the House, while the Populists lost most of their support. However, Cleveland's factional enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in state after state, including full control in Illinois and Michigan and made major gains in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and other states. Wisconsin and Massachusetts were two of the few states that remained under the control of Cleveland's allies. The opposition Democrats were close to controlling two thirds of the vote at the 1896 national convention, which they needed to nominate their own candidate. However, they were not united and had no national leader, as Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld had been born in Germany and was ineligible to be nominated for president.^[32]

Presidency of William McKinley (1897–1901)

Religious divisions were sharply drawn.^[33] Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Scandinavian Lutherans and other pietists in the North were closely linked to the Republican Party. In sharp contrast, liturgical groups, especially the Catholics, Episcopalians and German Lutherans, looked to the Democratic Party for protection from pietistic moralism, especially prohibition. Both parties cut across the class structure, with the Democrats gaining more support from the lower classes and Republicans more support from the upper classes.

Cultural issues, especially prohibition and foreign language schools, became matters of contention because of the sharp religious divisions in the electorate. In the North, about 50 percent of voters were pietistic Protestants (Methodists, Scandinavian Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Disciples of Christ) who believed the government should be used to reduce social sins, such as drinking.^[33]

Liturgical churches (Roman Catholics, German Lutherans and Episcopalians) comprised over a quarter of the vote and wanted the government to stay out of the morality business. Prohibition debates and referendums heated up politics in most states over a period of decade, as national prohibition was finally passed in 1918 (repealed in 1932), serving as a major issue between the wet Democrats and the dry Republicans.^[33]

The Free Silver Movement

William Jennings Bryan at age 36 was the youngest candidate, October 1896

Grover Cleveland led the party faction of conservative, pro-business Bourbon Democrats, but as the depression of 1893 deepened his enemies multiplied. At the 1896 convention, the silverite-agrarian faction repudiated the President and nominated the crusading orator William Jennings Bryan on a platform of free coinage of silver. The idea was that minting silver coins would flood the economy with cash and end the depression. Cleveland supporters formed the National Democratic Party (Gold Democrats), which attracted politicians and intellectuals (including Woodrow Wilson and Frederick Jackson Turner) who refused to vote Republican.^[34]

Bryan, an overnight sensation because of his "Cross of Gold" speech, waged a new-style crusade against the supporters of the gold standard. Criss-crossing the Midwest and East by special train – he was the first candidate since 1860 to go on the road – he gave over 500 speeches to audiences in the millions. In St. Louis he gave 36 speeches to workingmen's audiences across the city, all in one day. Most Democratic newspapers were hostile toward Bryan, but he seized control of the media by making the news every day as he hurled thunderbolts against Eastern monied interests.^[35]

The rural folk in the South and Midwest were ecstatic, showing an enthusiasm never before seen, but ethnic Democrats (especially Germans and Irish) were alarmed and frightened by Bryan. The middle classes, businessmen, newspaper editors, factory workers, railroad workers and prosperous farmers generally rejected Bryan's crusade. Republican William McKinley promised a return to prosperity based on the gold standard, support for industry, railroads and banks and pluralism that would enable every group to move ahead.^[35]

Although Bryan lost the election in a landslide, he did win the hearts and minds of a majority of Democrats, as shown by his renomination in 1900 and 1908. As late as 1924, the Democrats put his brother Charles W. Bryan on their national ticket.^[36] The victory of the Republican Party in the election of 1896 marked the start of the "Progressive Era", which lasted from 1896 to 1932, in which the Republican Party usually was dominant.^[37]

Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)

The 1896 election marked a political realignment in which the Republican Party controlled the presidency for 28 of 36 years. The Republicans dominated most of the Northeast and Midwest and half the West. Bryan, with a base in the South and Plains states, was strong enough to get the nomination in 1900 (losing to William McKinley) and 1908 (losing to William Howard Taft). Theodore Roosevelt dominated the first decade of the century and to the annoyance of Democrats "stole" the trust issue by crusading against trusts.^[38]

Anti-Bryan conservatives controlled the convention in 1904, but faced a Theodore Roosevelt landslide. Bryan dropped his free silver and anti-imperialism rhetoric and supported mainstream progressive issues, such as the income tax, anti-trust and direct election of Senators.

Presidency of William Howard Taft (1909–1913)

The Democratic Party benefited from the Taft-Roosevelt Republican split during Taft's term, electing the first Democratic President and fully Democratic Congress in 20 years.

Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921)

Taking advantage of a deep split in the Republican Party, the Democrats took control of the House in 1910 and elected the intellectual reformer Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916.^[39] Wilson successfully led Congress to a series of progressive laws, including a reduced tariff, stronger antitrust laws, new programs for farmers, hours-and-pay benefits for railroad workers and the outlawing of child labor (which was reversed by the Supreme Court).^[40]

Wilson tolerated the segregation of the federal Civil Service by Southern cabinet members. Furthermore, bipartisan constitutional amendments for prohibition and women's suffrage were passed in his second term. In effect, Wilson laid to rest the issues of tariffs, money and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years.^[40]

Wilson oversaw the U.S. role in World War I and helped write the Versailles Treaty, which included the League of Nations. However, in 1919 Wilson's political skills faltered and suddenly everything turned sour. The Senate rejected Versailles and the League, a nationwide wave of violent, unsuccessful strikes and race riots caused unrest and Wilson's health collapsed.^[41]

The Democrats lost by a huge landslide in 1920, doing especially poorly in the cities, where the German-Americans deserted the ticket; and the Irish Catholics, who dominated the party apparatus, sat on their hands.

Presidency of Warren G. Harding (1921–1923)

Although they recovered considerable ground in the Congressional elections of 1922, the entire decade saw the Democrats as a helpless minority in Congress and as a weak force in most Northern states.^[42]

Presidency of Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929)

At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, a resolution denouncing the Ku Klux Klan was introduced by forces allied with Al Smith and Oscar W. Underwood in order to embarrass the front-runner, William Gibbs McAdoo. After much debate, the resolution failed by a single vote. The KKK faded away soon after, but the deep split in the party over cultural issues, especially prohibition, facilitated Republican landslides in 1920, 1924 and 1928.^[43] However, Al Smith did build a strong Catholic base in the big cities in 1928 and Franklin D. Roosevelt's election as Governor of New York that year brought a new leader to center stage.^[44]

Presidency of Herbert Hoover (1929–1933)

The Great Depression marred Hoover's term as the Democratic Party made large gains in the 1930 congressional elections and garnered a landslide win in 1932.

Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945)

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest-serving President of the United States (1933–1945)

The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression set the stage for a more progressive government and Franklin D. Roosevelt won a landslide victory in the election of 1932, campaigning on a platform of "Relief, Recovery, and Reform", that is relief of unemployment and rural distress, recovery of the economy back to normal and long-term structural reforms to prevent a repetition of the Depression. This came to be termed "The New Deal" after a phrase in Roosevelt's acceptance speech.

The Democrats also swept to large majorities in both houses of Congress and among state governors. Roosevelt altered the nature of the party, away from laissez-faire capitalism and towards an ideology of economic regulation and insurance against hardship. Two old words took on new meanings: "liberal" now meant a supporter of the New Deal while "conservative" meant an opponent.

Conservative Democrats were outraged and led by Al Smith they formed the American Liberty League in 1934 and counterattacked. They failed and either retired from politics or joined the Republican Party. A few of them, such as Dean Acheson, found their way back to the Democratic Party.

The 1933 programs, called "the First New Deal" by historians, represented a broad consensus. Roosevelt tried to reach out to business and labor, farmers and consumers, cities and countryside. However, by 1934 he was moving toward a more confrontational policy. After making gains in state governorships and in Congress, in 1934 Roosevelt embarked on an ambitious legislative program that came to be called "The Second New Deal". It was characterized by building up labor unions, nationalizing welfare by the WPA, setting up Social Security, imposing more regulations on business (especially transportation and communications) and raising taxes on business profits.

Roosevelt's New Deal programs focused on job creation through public works projects as well as on social welfare programs such as Social Security. It also included sweeping reforms to the banking system, work regulation, transportation, communications and stock markets, as well as attempts to regulate prices. His policies soon paid off by uniting a diverse coalition of Democratic voters called the New Deal coalition, which included labor unions, Southerners, minorities (most significantly, Catholics and Jews) and liberals. This united voter base allowed Democrats to be elected to Congress and the presidency for much of the next 30 years.

After a triumphant re-election in 1936, he announced plans to enlarge the Supreme Court, which tended to oppose his New Deal, by five new members. A firestorm of opposition erupted, led by his own Vice President John Nance Garner. Roosevelt was defeated by an alliance of Republicans and conservative Democrats, who formed a conservative coalition that managed to block nearly all liberal legislation (only a minimum wage law got through). Annoyed by the conservative wing of his own party, Roosevelt made an attempt to rid himself of it and in 1938 he actively campaigned against five incumbent conservative Democratic senators, though all five senators won re-election.

Under Roosevelt, the Democratic Party became identified more closely with modern liberalism, which included the promotion of social welfare, labor unions, civil rights and the regulation of business. The opponents, who stressed long-term growth and support for entrepreneurship and low taxes, now started calling themselves "conservatives".

Presidency of Harry S. Truman (1945–1953)

Domestic policy

Adlai Stevenson warns against a return of the Republican policies of Herbert Hoover, 1952 campaign poster

In Congress, the powerful duo of House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson held the party together, often by compromising with Eisenhower. In 1958, the party made dramatic gains in the midterms and seemed to have a permanent lock on Congress, thanks largely to organized labor. Indeed, Democrats had majorities in the House every election from 1930 to 1992 (except 1946 and 1952).

Most Southern Congressmen were conservative Democrats and they usually worked with conservative Republicans. The result was a conservative coalition that blocked practically all liberal domestic legislation from 1937 to the 1970s, except for a brief spell 1964–1965, when Johnson neutralized its power. The counterbalance to the conservative coalition was the Democratic Study Group, which led the charge to liberalize the institutions of Congress and eventually pass a great deal of the Kennedy–Johnson program.

Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1961–1963)

President John F. Kennedy with his brothers, Attorney General and later New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy

The election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 over then-Vice President Richard Nixon re-energized the party. His youth, vigor and intelligence caught the popular imagination. New programs like the Peace Corps harnessed idealism. In terms of legislation, Kennedy was stalemated by the conservative coalition.

Though Kennedy's term in office lasted only about a thousand days, he tried to hold back communist gains after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and the construction of the Berlin Wall and sent 16,000 soldiers to Vietnam to advise the hard-pressed South Vietnamese army. He challenged America in the Space Race to land an American man on the moon by 1969. After the Cuban Missile Crisis he moved to de-escalate tensions with the Soviet Union.

Kennedy also pushed for civil rights and racial integration, one example being Kennedy assigning federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders in the South. His election did mark the coming of age of the Catholic component of the New Deal Coalition. After 1964, middle class Catholics started voting Republican in the same proportion as their Protestant neighbors. Except for the Chicago of Richard J. Daley, the last of the Democratic machines faded away. President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969)

Then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the new President. Johnson, heir to the New Deal ideals, broke the conservative coalition in Congress and passed a remarkable number of laws, known as the Great Society. Johnson succeeded in passing major civil rights laws that restarted racial integration in the South. At the same time, Johnson escalated the Vietnam War, leading to an inner conflict inside the Democratic Party that shattered the party in the elections of 1968.

President Lyndon Johnson foresaw the end of the Solid South when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Democratic Party platform of the 1960s was largely formed by the ideals of President Johnson's "Great Society" The New Deal coalition began to fracture as more Democratic leaders voiced support for civil rights, upsetting the party's traditional base of Southern Democrats and Catholics in Northern cities. After Harry Truman's platform gave strong support to civil rights and anti-segregation laws during the 1948 Democratic National Convention, many Southern Democratic delegates decided to split from the party and formed the "Dixiecrats", led by South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond (who as Senator would later join the Republican Party). However, few other Democrats left the party.

On the other hand, African Americans, who had traditionally given strong support to the Republican Party since its inception as the "anti-slavery party", continued to shift to the Democratic Party, largely due to the advocacy of and support for civil rights by such prominent Democrats as Hubert Humphrey and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; and to a lesser extent economic opportunities offered by the New Deal relief programs. Although Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower carried half the South in 1952 and 1956 and Senator Barry Goldwater also carried five Southern states in 1964, Democrat Jimmy Carter carried all of the South except Virginia and there was no long-term realignment until Ronald Reagan's sweeping victories in the South in 1980 and 1984.

The party's dramatic reversal on civil rights issues culminated when Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act was passed in both House and Senate by a Republican majority. Many of the Democrats, mostly Southern Democrats opposed the act. Meanwhile, the Republicans led again by Richard Nixon were beginning to implement their new economic policies which aimed to resist federal encroachment on the states, while appealing to conservative and moderate in the rapidly growing cities and suburbs of the South.

The year 1968 marked a major crisis for the party. In January, even though it was a military defeat for the Viet Cong, the Tet Offensive began to turn American public opinion against the Vietnam War. Senator Eugene McCarthy rallied intellectuals and anti-war students on college campuses and came within a few percentage points of defeating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary:Johnson was permanently weakened. Four days later, Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of the late President, entered the race.^[49]

Johnson stunned the nation on March 31 when he withdrew from the race and four weeks later his Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, entered the race, though he did not run in any primary. Kennedy and McCarthy traded primary victories while Humphrey gathered the support of labor unions and the big-city bosses. Kennedy won the critical California primary on June 4, but he was assassinated that night. Even as Kennedy won California, Humphrey had already amassed 1,000 of the 1,312 delegate votes needed for the nomination, while Kennedy had about 700).^[49]

During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, while police and the National Guard violently confronted anti-war protesters on the streets and parks of Chicago, the Democrats nominated Humphrey. Meanwhile, Alabama's Democratic governor George C. Wallace launched a third-party campaign and at one point was running second to the Republican candidate Richard Nixon. Nixon barely won, with the Democrats retaining control of Congress. The party was now so deeply split that it would not again win a majority of the popular vote for president until 1976, when Jimmy Carter won the popular vote in 1976 with 50.1%.

The degree to which the Southern Democrats had abandoned the party became evident in the 1968 presidential election when the electoral votes of every former Confederate state except Texas went to either Republican Richard Nixon or independent Wallace. Humphrey's electoral votes came mainly from the Northern states, marking a dramatic reversal from the 1948 election 20 years earlier, when the losing Republican electoral votes were concentrated in the same states.

Presidency of Richard Nixon (1969–1974)

Following the 1968 debacle, the McGovern-Fraser Commission proposed and the party adopted far-reaching changes in how national convention delegates were selected. More power over the presidential nominee selection accrued to the rank and file and presidential primaries became significantly more important. In 1972, the Democrats nominated Senator George McGovern (SD) as the presidential candidate on a platform which advocated, among other things, immediate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam (with his anti-war slogan "Come Home, America!") and a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. McGovern's forces at the national convention ousted Mayor Richard J. Daley and the entire Chicago delegation, replacing them with insurgents led by Jesse Jackson. After it became known that McGovern's running mate Thomas Eagleton had received electric shock therapy, McGovern said he supported Eagleton "1000%", but he was soon forced to drop him and find a new running mate.^[50]

Numerous top names turned him down, but McGovern finally selected Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy in-law who was close to Mayor Daley. On July 14, 1972, McGovern appointed his campaign manager, Jean Westwood, as the first woman chair of the Democratic National Committee. McGovern was defeated in a landslide by incumbent Richard Nixon, winning only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.^[51]

Presidency of Gerald Ford (1974–1977)

The sordid Watergate scandal soon destroyed the Nixon Presidency, giving the Democrats a flicker of hope. With Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon soon after his resignation in 1974, the Democrats used the "corruption" issue to make major gains in the off-year elections. In 1976, mistrust of the administration, complicated by a combination of economic recession and inflation, sometimes called "stagflation", led to Ford's defeat by Jimmy Carter, a former Governor of Georgia. Carter won as a little-known outsider by promising honesty in Washington, a message that played well to voters as he swept the South and won narrowly.^[52]

Presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977–1981)

President Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 and defeated in 1980

Carter had served as a naval officer, a farmer, a state senator and a one-term governor. His only experience with federal politics was when he chaired the Democratic National Committee's congressional and gubernatorial elections in 1974. Some of Carter's major accomplishments consisted of the creation of a national energy policy and the consolidation of governmental agencies, resulting in two new cabinet departments, the United States Department of Energy and the United States Department of Education. Carter also successfully deregulated the trucking, airline, rail, finance, communications and oil industries (thus backtracking on the New Deal approach to regulation of the economy), bolstered the social security system and appointed record numbers of women and minorities to significant government and judicial posts. He also enacted strong legislation on environmental protection through the expansion of the National Park Service in Alaska, creating 103 million acres (417,000 km²) of park land.^[53]

In foreign affairs, Carter's accomplishments consisted of the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and the negotiation of the SALT II Treaty. In addition, he championed human rights throughout the world and used human rights as the center of his administration's foreign policy.^[54]

Even with all of these successes, Carter failed to implement a national health plan or to reform the tax system as he had promised in his campaign and inflation was also on the rise. Abroad, the Iranians held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days and Carter's diplomatic and military rescue attempts failed. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year further disenchanted some Americans with Carter. In 1980, Carter defeated Senator Ted Kennedy to gain renomination, but lost to Ronald Reagan in November. The Democrats lost 12 Senate seats and for the first time since 1954 the Republicans controlled the Senate, though the House remained in Democratic hands.^[54] After his defeat, Carter negotiated the release of every American hostage held in Iran and they were lifted out of Iran minutes after Reagan was inaugurated, ending a 444-day crisis.^[55]

Presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)

1980s: battling Reaganism

Representative Thomas "Tip" O'Neill was Speaker of the House (1977–1987) and was the highest ranking Democrat in Washington, D.C. during most of Reagan's term

Democrats who supported many conservative policies were instrumental in the election of Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1980. The "Reagan Democrats" were Democrats before the Reagan years and afterward, but they voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and for George H. W. Bush in 1988, producing their landslide victories. Reagan Democrats were mostly white ethnics in the Northeast and Midwest who were attracted to Reagan's social conservatism on issues such as abortion and to his strong foreign policy. They did not continue to vote Republican in 1992 or 1996, so the term fell into disuse except as a reference to the 1980s. The term is not used to describe White Southerners who became permanent Republicans in presidential elections.^[56]

Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, analyzed white ethnic voters – largely unionized auto workers – in suburban Macomb County, Michigan, just north of Detroit. The county voted 63 percent for Kennedy in 1960 and 66 percent for Reagan in 1984. He concluded that Reagan Democrats no longer saw Democrats as champions of their middle class aspirations, but instead saw it as a party working primarily for the benefit of others, especially African Americans, advocacy groups of the political left and the very poor.^[56]

The failure to hold the Reagan Democrats and the white South led to the final collapse of the New Deal coalition. In 1984, Reagan carried 49 states against former Vice President and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a New Deal stalwart.^[57]

In response to these landslide defeats, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was created in 1985. It worked to move the party rightwards to the ideological center in order to recover some of the fundraising that had been lost to the Republicans due to corporate donors supporting Reagan. The goal was to retain left-of-center voters as well as moderates and conservatives on social issues to become a catch all party with widespread appeal to most opponents of the Republicans. Despite this, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, running not as a New Dealer but as an efficiency expert in public administration, lost by a landslide in 1988 to Vice President George H. W. Bush.^[58]

Presidency of George H. W. Bush (1989–1993)

Presidency of Bill Clinton (1993–2001)

During Bill Clinton's presidency, the Democratic Party moved ideologically toward the center

In the 1990s, the Democratic Party revived itself, in part by moving to the right on economic policy. In 1992, for the first time in 12 years the United States had a Democrat in the White House. During President Bill Clinton's term, the Congress balanced the federal budget for the first time since the Kennedy Presidency and presided over a robust American economy that saw incomes grow across the board. In 1994, the economy had the lowest combination of unemployment and inflation in 25 years. President Clinton also signed into law several gun control bills, including the Brady Bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases; and he also signed into legislation a ban on many types of semi-automatic firearms (which expired in 2004). His Family and Medical Leave Act, covering some 40 million Americans, offered workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave for childbirth or a personal or family illness. He deployed the U.S. military to Haiti to reinstate deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took a strong hand in Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, brokered a historic cease-fire in Northern Ireland and negotiated the Dayton accords. In 1996, Clinton became the first Democratic President to be re-elected since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

However, the Democrats lost their majority in both Houses of Congress in 1994. Clinton vetoed two Republican-backed welfare reform bills before signing the third, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. The tort reform Private Securities Litigation Reform Act passed over his veto. Labor unions, which had been steadily losing membership since the 1960s, found they had also lost political clout inside the Democratic Party and Clinton enacted the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico over unions' strong objections.^[62] In 1998, the Republican-led House of Representatives impeached Clinton on two charges, though he was subsequently acquitted by the United States Senate in 1999. Under Clinton's leadership, the United States participated in NATO's Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia that year.

Presidency of George W. Bush (2001–2009)

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the nation's focus was changed to issues of national security. All but one Democrat (Representative Barbara Lee) voted with their Republican counterparts to authorize President Bush's 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. House leader Richard Gephardt and Senate leader Thomas Daschle pushed Democrats to vote for the USA PATRIOT Act and the invasion of Iraq. The Democrats were split over entering Iraq in 2003 and increasingly expressed concerns about both the justification and progress of the War on Terrorism, as well as the domestic effects, including threats to civil rights and civil liberties, from the Patriot act. Senator Russ Feingold was the only Senator to vote against the act.^[67]

Nancy Pelosi of California was the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives

In the wake of the financial fraud scandal of the Enron Corporation and other corporations, Congressional Democrats pushed for a legal overhaul of business accounting with the intention of preventing further accounting fraud. This led to the bipartisan Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. With job losses and bankruptcies across regions and industries increasing in 2001 and 2002, the Democrats generally campaigned on the issue of economic recovery. That did not work for them in 2002, as the Democrats lost a few seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

They lost three seats in the Senate (Georgia as Max Cleland was unseated, Minnesota as Paul Wellstone died and his succeeding Democratic candidate lost the election and Missouri as Jean Carnahan was unseated) in the Senate. While Democrats gained governorships in New Mexico (where Bill Richardson was elected), Arizona (Janet Napolitano), Michigan (Jennifer Granholm) and Wyoming (Dave Freudenthal). Other Democrats lost governorships in South Carolina (Jim Hodges), Alabama (Don Siegelman) and—for the first time in more than a century—Georgia (Roy Barnes).

The election led to another round of soul searching about the party's narrowing base. Democrats had further losses 2003, when a voter recall unseated the unpopular Democratic governor of California Gray Davis and replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the end of 2003, the four most populous states had Republican governors: California, Texas, New York and Florida.

Presidency of Barack Obama (2009–2017)

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President of the United States

On January 20, 2009, Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States in a ceremony attended by nearly 2 million people, the largest congregation of spectators ever to witness the inauguration of a new President.^[77] That same day in Washington, D.C., Republican House of Representative leaders met in an "invitation only" meeting for four hours to discuss the future of the Republican Party under the Obama administration. During the meeting, they agreed to bring Congress to a standstill regardless of how much it would hurt the American economy by pledging to obstruct and block President Obama on all legislation.

One of the first acts by the Obama administration after assuming control was an order signed by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that suspended all pending federal regulations proposed by outgoing President George W. Bush so that they could be reviewed. This was comparable to prior moves by the Bush administration upon assuming control from Bill Clinton, who in his final 20 days in office issued 12 executive orders.^[78] In his first week, Obama also established a policy of producing a weekly Saturday morning video address available on Whitehouse.gov and YouTube, much like those released during his transition period. The policy is likened to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fireside chats and George W. Bush's weekly radio addresses.

President Obama signed into law the following significant legislation during his first 100 days in the White House: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2009 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Also during his first 100 days, the Obama administration reversed the following significant George W. Bush administration policies: supporting the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity, relaxing enforcement of cannabis laws and lifting the 7½-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Obama also issued Executive Order 13492, ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, although it has remained open throughout his presidency. He also lifted some travel and money restrictions to the island, ended the Mexico City Policy and signed an order requiring the Army Field Manual to be used as guide for terror interrogations, which banned torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding.

Obama also announced stricter guidelines regarding lobbyists in an effort to raise the ethical standards of the White House.^[79] The new policy bans aides from attempting to influence the administration for at least two years if they leave his staff. It also bans aides on staff from working on matters they have previously lobbied on, or to approach agencies that they targeted while on staff. Their ban also included a gift-giving ban.^[80] However, one day later he nominated William J. Lynn III, a lobbyist for defence contractor Raytheon, for the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense.^[81][82] Obama later nominated William Corr, an anti-tobacco lobbyist, for Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services.^[83]

During the beginning of Obama Presidency emerged the Tea Party movement, a conservative movement that began to heavily influence the Republican Party within the United States, shifting the GOP further right-wing and partisan in their ideology. On February 18, 2009, Obama announced that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would be bolstered by 17,000 new troops by summer.^[84] The announcement followed the recommendation of several experts including Defense Secretary Robert Gates that additional troops be deployed to the strife-torn South Asian country.^[85] On February 27, 2009, Obama addressed Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and outlined an exit strategy for the Iraq War. Obama promised to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010 and a "transitional force" of up to 50,000 counterterrorism, advisory, training and support personnel by the end of 2011.^[86]

Obama signed two presidential memorandum concerning energy independence, ordering the Department of Transportation to establish higher fuel efficiency standards before 2011 models are released and allowing states to raise their emissions standards above the national standard. Due to the economic crisis, the President enacted a pay freeze for senior White House staff making more than $100,000 per year.^[87] The action affected approximately 120 staffers and added up to about a $443,000 savings for the United States government.^[88] On March 10, 2009, in a meeting with the New Democrat Coalition, Obama told them that he was a "New Democrat", "pro-growth Democrat", "supports free and fair trade" and "very concerned about a return to protectionism".^[89]

On May 26, 2009, President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate becoming the highest ranking government official of Puerto Rican heritage ever. On July 1, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010. On July 7, 2009, Al Franken was sworn into the Senate, thus Senate Democrats obtained the 60 vote threshold to overcome the Senate filibuster.

On October 28, 2009, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which included in it the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded federal hate crime laws to include sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. On February 4, 2010, Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts was sworn into the Senate, thus ending Senate Democrats 60 vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law his signature legislation of his presidency, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which represents the most significant regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. On May 10, 2010, President Obama nominated Elena Kagan for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and Elena Kagan was confirmed by the Senate on August 5, 2010 by a 63–37 vote. Kagan was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on August 7, 2010.

On 19 August 2010, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was the last American combat brigade to withdraw from Iraq. In a speech at the Oval Office on 31 August 2010, Obama declared: "[T]he American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country".^[90][91] About 50,000 American troops remained in the country in an advisory capacity as part of "Operation New Dawn", which ran until the end of 2011. New Dawn was the final designated U.S. campaign of the war. The U.S. military continued to train and advise the Iraqi Forces, as well as participate in combat alongside them.^[92]

On November 2, 2010 during the 2010 midterm elections, the Democratic Party had a net loss of six seats in the Senate and 63 seats in the House. Control of the House of Representatives switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. The Democrats lost a net of six state governorships and a net 680 seats in state legislatures. The Democrats lost control of seven state Senate legislatures and 13 state Houses. This was the worst performance of the Democratic Party in a national election since the 1946 elections. The Blue Dog Coalition numbers in the House were reduced from 54 members in 2008 to 26 members in 2011 and were half of the Democratic defeats during the election. This was the first United States national election in which Super PACs were used by Democrats and Republicans. Many commentators contribute the electoral success of the Republican Party in 2010 to the conservative Super PACs' campaign spending, Tea Party movement, backlash against President Obama, failure to mobilize the Obama coalition to get out and vote and the failure of President Obama to enact many of his progressive and liberal campaign promises.

On December 1, 2010, Obama announced at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point that the U.S. would send 30,000 more troops.^[93] Anti-war organizations in the U.S. responded quickly and cities throughout the U.S. saw protests on 2 December.^[94] Many protesters compared the decision to deploy more troops in Afghanistan to the expansion of the Vietnam War under the Johnson administration.^[95]

During the lameduck session of the 111th United States Congress, President Obama signed into law the following significant legislation: Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, Shark Conservation Act of 2010 and the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010. On December 18, 2010, the Arab Spring began. On 22 December 2010, the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of New START by a vote of 71 to 26 on the resolution of ratification. The 111th United States Congress has been considered one of the most productive Congresses in history in terms of legislation passed since the 89th Congress, during Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.^{[96][97][98][99]}

On February 23, 2011, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced the United States federal government would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act within federal courts. In response to the First Libyan Civil War, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and Office of Multilateral and Human Rights Director Samantha Power led the hawkish diplomatic team within the Obama administration that helped convince President Obama in favor airstrikes against Libyan government. On March 19, 2011, the United States began military intervention in Libya.

United States domestic reaction to the 2011 military intervention in Libya were mixed in the Democratic Party. Opponents to the 2011 military intervention in Libya within the Democratic Party include Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Jim Webb, Rep. Raul Grijalva, Rep. Mike Honda, Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Rep. Barbara Lee. The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), an organization of progressive Democrats, said that the United States should conclude its campaign against Libyan air defenses as soon as possible. Support for the 2011 military intervention in Libya within the Democratic Party include President Bill Clinton, Sen. Carl Levin, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Jack Reed, Sen. John Kerry, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Legal Adviser of the Department of State Harold Hongju Koh and Ed Schultz.

On April 5, 2011, Vice President Joe Biden announced that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was President Obama's choice to succeed Tim Kaine as the 52nd Chair of the Democratic National Committee. On May 26, 2011, President Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, which was strongly criticized by some in the Democratic Party as violation of civil liberties and a continuation of the George W. Bush administration. House Democrats largely opposed the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, while Senate Democrats were slightly in favor of it.

On October 21, 2011, President Obama signed into law three of the following United States free trade agreements: Free trade agreement between the United States of America and the Republic of Korea, Panama–United States Trade Promotion Agreement and the United States–Colombia Free Trade Agreement. In the House of Representatives, Democratic Representatives largely opposed these agreements, while Senate Democrats were split on the agreements. This was a continuation of President Bill Clinton's policy of support for free trade agreements.

When asked by David Gregory about his views on same-sex marriage on Meet the Press on May 5, 2012, Biden stated he supported same-sex marriage.^[100] On May 9, 2012, a day after North Carolina voters approved Amendment 1, President Obama became the first sitting United States President to come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

The 2012 Democratic Party platform for Obama's reelection ran over 26,000 words and included his position on numerous national issues. On security issues, it pledges "unshakable commitment to Israel's security", says the party will try to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. It calls for a strong military, but argues that in the current fiscal environment, tough budgetary decisions must include defense spending. On controversial social issues it supports abortion rights, same-sex marriage and says the party is "strongly committed to enacting comprehensive immigration reform". On the economic side the platform calls for extending the tax cuts for families earning under $250,000 and promises not to raise their taxes. It praises the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare", but does not use that term). It "adamantly oppose any efforts to privatize Medicare". On the rules of politics it attacks the recent Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that allows much greater political spending. It demands "immediate action to curb the influence of lobbyists and special interests on our political institutions".^[101]

Intense budget negotiations in the divided 112th Congress, wherein Democrats resolved to fight Republican demands for decreased spending and no tax hikes, threatened to shut down the government in April 2011^[102] and later spurred fears that the United States would default on its debt. Continuing tight budgets were felt at the state level, where public-sector unions, a key Democratic constituency, battled Republican efforts to limit their collective bargaining powers in order to save money and reduce union power. This led to sustained protests by public-sector employees and walkouts by sympathetic Democratic legislators in states like Wisconsin and Ohio. The 2011 "Occupy movement". a campaign on the left for more accountable economic leadership, failed to have the impact on Democratic Party leadership and policy that the Tea Party movement had on the Republicans. ts leadership proved ineffective and the Occupy movement fizzled out. However, echoes could be found in the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders in 2015–2016.^[103]

Conservatives criticized the president for "passive" responses to crises such as the 2009 Iranian protests and the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Additionally, liberal and Democratic activists objected to Obama's decisions to send reinforcements to Afghanistan, resume military trials of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay and to help enforce a no-fly zone over Libya during that country's civil war. However, the demands of anti-war advocates were heeded when Obama followed through on a campaign promise to withdraw combat troops from Iraq.

The 2012 election was characterized by very high spending, especially on negative television ads in about ten critical states. Despite a weak economic recovery and high unemployment, the Obama campaign successfully mobilized its coalition of youth, blacks, Hispanics and women. The campaign carried all the same states as in 2008 except two, Indiana and North Carolina. The election continued the pattern whereby Democrats won more votes in all presidential elections after 1988, except for 2004. Obama and the Democrats lost control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, losing nine seats in that body and 13 in the GOP House.

2016 United States elections

2016 United States presidential election

2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries

Senator Bernie Sanders

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

National polling from 2013 to the summer of 2015 showed Hillary Clinton with an overwhelming commanding lead over all of her potential primary opponents. Her main challenger was independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whose rallies grew larger and larger as he attracted overwhelming majorities among Democrats under age 40. The sharp divide between the two candidates was the establishment versus the political outsider, with Clinton being the establishment candidate and Sanders the outsider. Clinton received the endorsements from an overwhelming majority of office holders. Clinton's core base voters during the primary was women, African Americans, Latino Americans, LGBTs, moderates and older voters, while Sanders' core base included younger voters under age 40, men and progressives.

Ideological differences

Further information: Political positions of the Democratic Party presidential primary candidates, 2016

The ideological differences between the two candidates represented the ideological divide within the Democratic Party as a whole. Clinton, who cast herself as a moderate and a progressive, is ideologically more of a centrist, representing the Third Way, New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did. Bernie Sanders, who remained an independent in the Senate throughout the primaries (despite running for President as a Democrat), is a self described democratic socialist, and is ideologically more of a progressive or social-democrat representing the progressive/populist wing of the Democratic Party, which includes politicians such as Elizabeth Warren.^[104]

During the primaries, Sanders attacked Clinton for her ties to Wall Street and her previous support of the Defense of Marriage Act, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Keystone Pipeline, the 2011 military intervention in Libya and the Iraq War, while Clinton attacked Sanders for voting against the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.^[105] Clinton generally moved to the left as the campaign progressed, and adopted variations of some of Sanders' themes, such as opinions regarding trade and college tuition.^[106] Although she was generally favored to win in polls, she lost the general election to Donald Trump in the Electoral College, despite winning the popular vote.

Presidency of Donald Trump (2017–present)

115th United States Congress

As of September 13, 2017, 16 Senate Democrats cosponsored the Medicare for All Act of 2017.^[107] As of September 26, 2017, 120 House Democrats cosponsored the Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act.^[108]

National Democratic Redistricting Committee

Main article: National Democratic Redistricting Committee

On January 12, 2017, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a 527 organization that focuses on redistricting reform and is affiliated with the Democratic Party. The chair, president and vice president of the umbrella organization is the 82th Attorney General Eric Holder, Elizabeth Pearson and Alixandria "Ali" Lapp respectively.^[109] President Obama has said he would be involved with the committee.^{[110][111][112]}

Protests against Donald Trump

Main article: Protests against Donald Trump

Inauguration of Donald Trump

Main article: Inauguration of Donald Trump

At the inauguration of Donald Trump, 67 Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives boycotted the inauguration.^[113] This was the largest boycott by members of the United States Congress since the second inauguration of Richard Nixon, where it was estimated that between 80 and 200 Democratic members of United States Congress boycotted.^[114]

2017 Donald Trump speech to joint session of Congress

Main article: Donald Trump speech to joint session of Congress, February 2017

At the 2017 Donald Trump speech to joint session of Congress, Representative Maxine Waters and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg both did not attend.^[115]

2018 State of the Union Address

Main article: 2018 State of the Union Address

As of January 19, 2018, 6 Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives will boycott the 2018 State of the Union Address

Democratic Party PACs

Justice Democrats

Main article: Justice Democrats

On January 23, 2017, Justice Democrats, political action committee, was created by Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk, Saikat Chakrabarti and Zack Exley (both former leadership from the former 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign). The organization, formed as a result of the 2016 United States presidential election, has a stated goal of reforming the Democratic Party by running "a unified campaign to replace every corporate-backed member of Congress and rebuild the [Democratic] party from scratch" starting in the 2018 Congressional midterms.^[116][117]

New Blue

Main article: Third Way (United States)

On January 17, 2017, Third Way, a public policy think tank, launched New Blue, a $20 million campaign to study Democratic short comings in the 2016 elections and offer a new economic agenda to help Democrats reconnect with the voters who have abandoned the party. The money will be spent to conduct extensive research, reporting and polling in Rust Belt states that once formed a Blue Wall, but which voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.^[118] Many progressives have criticized this as a desperate measure for the so-called establishment wing of the party to retain leadership.

Onward Together

Main article: Onward Together

On May 15, 2017, Onward Together, a political action organization was launched by Hillary Clinton to fundraise for liberal organizations, such as Swing Left, Indivisible, Color of Change, Emerge America, and Run for Something,.^[119]

2017 United States elections

Main article: United States elections, 2017

2017 Democratic National Committee elections

Main article: Democratic National Committee chairmanship election, 2017

Keith Ellison

Tom Perez

The 2017 Democratic National Committee chairmanship election was characterized primarily as being between the two candidates for the chairmanship, United States Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district Keith Ellison and 26th United States Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. On February 25, 2017, Perez won the Democratic National Committee chairmanship and named Keith Ellison as Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, a newly created position. The Obama administration pushed for Tom Perez to run against Keith Ellison, and President Obama personally called DNC members to encourage them to vote for Perez.^[120][121]

See also

• Democratic National Convention
• List of Democratic National Conventions

United States politics

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• History of the United States Republican Party

Notes

References

Further reading

• Bartlett, Bruce (2008). Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Retrieved August 4, 2015.
• Michael Todd Landis. "Dinesh D’Souza Claims in a New Film that the Democratic Party Was Pro-Slavery. Here's the Sad Truth" (March 13, 2016). History News Network.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Democratic Party (United States)

Campaign text books

The national committees of major parties published a "campaign textbook" every presidential election from about 1856 to about 1932. They were designed for speakers and contain statistics, speeches, summaries of legislation, and documents, with plenty of argumentation. Only large academic libraries have them, but some are online:

• Address to the Democratic Republican Electors of the State of New York (1840). Published before the formation of party national committees.
• The Campaign Text Book: Why the People Want a Change. The Republican Party Reviewed... (1876)
• The Campaign Book of the Democratic Party (1882) I HDFHKKL
• The Political Reformation of 1884: A Democratic Campaign Book
• The Campaign Text Book of the Democratic Party of the United States, for the Presidential Election of 1888
• The Campaign Text Book of the Democratic Party for the Presidential Election of 1892
• Democratic Campaign Book. Presidential Election of 1896