The Republican Party traces its roots to the 1850s, when antislavery leaders (including former members of the Democratic, Whig, and Free-Soil parties) joined forces to oppose the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. Clinton was reelected in 1996, though the Republicans retained control of Congress. The party’s first elected U.S. president was Abraham Lincoln, who took office in 1861. Today’s GOP is generally socially conservative, and favors smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes and less federal intervention in the economy. The United States has only two major political parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. Republican John Boehner was elected the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2010 and re-elected in 2012. Opponents of Jackson’s policies formed their own party, the Whig Party, and by the 1840s Democrats and Whigs were the country’s two main political coalitions. The party acquired the acronym GOP, widely understood as “Grand Old Party,” in the 1870s. The story reached toy maker Morris Michtom, who decided to make stuffed bears as a dedication to Roosevelt. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. During the 19th century the Republican Party stood against the extension of slavery to the country’s new territories and, ultimately, for slavery’s complete abolition. Trump continued to defy political norms after taking office, and his presidency was plagued by controversy, especially allegations that his campaign had colluded with Russia to secure his election. The three largest parties aside from the two main political parties are the Libertarian Party, Green Party of the United States, and the Constitution Party in respective order. Although most Republicans in the 1930s vehemently opposed Roosevelt’s New Deal social programs, by the 1950s the party had largely accepted the federal government’s expanded role and regulatory powers. Bush was only the second son of a president to assume the nation’s highest office. The situation in Congress remained relatively unchanged, with Republicans retaining their hold on the House of Representatives and Democrats successfully defending their majority in the Senate. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was elected. Roosevelt’s three reelections (he was the only president to serve more than two terms), the succession of Harry S. Truman to the presidency on Roosevelt’s death in 1945, and Truman’s narrow election over New York Gov. The other big party is the Democratic Party. Tea Party candidates, some of whom had displaced candidates favoured by the Republican establishment during the primaries, had mixed success in the general election. His overall approval ratings were typically low, and in the 2018 midterms Democrats retook control of the House. Harding and Coolidge made a plan for the economy which lowered taxes, made the government spend less money, and got rid of rules and laws that affected the economy. During the 20th and 21st centuries the party came to be associated with laissez-faire capitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies. During that race, opponents of Jackson called him a ...read more, The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Two months later, a larger group met in Jackson, Michigan, to choose the party’s first candidates for statewide office. As the Whig Party collapsed, the Republicans became one of two major political parties in the United States (the Democratic Party was the other major political party). The symbol of the Republican party is the elephant. ", "Social conservatives win on GOP platform", "Centrist Republicans and Democrats meet to devise bipartisan healthcare plan", "Donald Trump is Transforming the G.O.P. With the rise of the Progressive movement, which sought to improve life for working-class Americans and encourage Protestant values such as temperance (which would lead to Prohibition in 1919), some Republicans championed progressive social, economic and labor reforms, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who split from the more conservative wing of the party after leaving office. In federal elections from the 1870s to the 1890s, the parties were in rough balance—except in the South, which became solidly Democratic. All Rights Reserved. As white resistance to Reconstruction solidified, these interests, rather than those of blacks in the South, became the main Republican focus, and by the mid-1870s Democratic Southern state legislatures had wiped out most of Reconstruction’s changes. Although he enjoyed solid support among Republicans, some believed that he was causing irreparable harm to the party. During the 2018 congressional elections, exit polls showed that white, male, and non-college-educated voters were more likely to vote for Republican candidates over their Democratic counterparts. Not all Republicans believe in the same things, but generally these are the things many Republicans support: Most supporters for the Republican Party come from states in the Southern, Deep South, parts of the Midwest, and the rural Northeast areas of the USA, as well as from Montana; though they come from all over the United States, including the northern portion of California. Reagan wanted fewer laws to affect the economy, and wanted the military to be stronger. Bush. Currently, the Republican Party is identified by classical liberalism, conservatism, and right-wing policies. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration as president, however, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and the country soon descended into the American Civil War (1861–65). During Bush’s term, the Cold War came to an end after communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Even before Lincoln could be inaugurated, seven Southern states seceded from the Union, beginning the process that would lead to the Civil War. After running on a platform based on reducing the size of the federal government, Reagan increased military spending, spearheaded huge tax cuts and championed the free market with policies that became known as Reaganomics. In the 1850s, the issue of slavery—and its extension into new territories and states joining the Union—ripped apart these political coalitions. Cartoon from the 1860 presidential election showing three of the candidates—(left to right) Republican Abraham Lincoln, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge—tearing the country apart, while the Constitutional Union candidate, John Bell, applies glue from a tiny, useless pot. In 1991 Bush led an international coalition that drove Iraqi armies out of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. The Republicans were in severe turmoil at their 1964 convention, where moderates and conservatives battled for control of the party. Republicans benefited from the prosperity of the 1920s, but after the stock market crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, many Americans blamed them for the crisis and deplored their resistance to use direct government intervention to help people. It was called the Republican Decade for that reason. The GOP recaptured the White House in 2000, with the highly contested victory of Bush’s son, George W. Bush, over Democratic contender Al Gore. Thus, the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was able to capture the presidency, winning 18 Northern states and receiving 60 percent of the electoral vote but only 40 percent of the popular vote. He was re-elected senator from Illinois ...read more, Populism is a style of politics used to mobilize mass movements against ruling powers. This dissatisfaction allowed Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt to easily defeat the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover, in 1932. To broaden his support, he chose as his vice presidential candidate Andrew Johnson, a pro-Union Democratic senator from Tennessee, and the Lincoln-Johnson ticket subsequently won a landslide victory over Democrat George B. McClellan and his running mate George Pendleton. In a series of six videos, the House GOP Doctors Caucus went into detail about how Operation Warp Speed is working to produce a safe and… In 1863 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in rebelling states to be “forever free” and welcomed them to join the Union’s armed forces. The Republicans lost the House and won the Senate in 2018. Ford lost narrowly to Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. George W. Bush delivering the 2002 State of the Union address, in which he described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil.”. George H.W. Reagan introduced deep tax cuts and launched a massive buildup of U.S. military forces. Aiding the State of Israel, the United States' allies, and defending American interests in the Middle East. Congress continued to be controlled by the Democrats, however, and Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992 to another Southern Democrat, Bill Clinton. The Republicans are often called "the right" or "conservatives".The Republican Party itself is also known as the GOP, which stands for "Grand Old Party".The symbol of the Republican … The term Republican was adopted in 1792 by supporters of Thomas Jefferson, who favoured a decentralized government with limited powers. Known for their support of a strong national government, the Federalists emphasized commercial and diplomatic harmony with ...read more, The Democratic Party’s donkey and the Republican Party’s elephant have been on the political scene since the 19th century. But, to the surprise of most political pundits, he won the electoral college despite amassing almost three million fewer popular votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton, giving Republicans the presidency for the first time in eight years to go alongside the party’s retention of power in both chambers of Congress. They voted against many of Clinton's ideas and proposed ideas of their own such as a line item veto and a balanced budget amendment. Because the historical role played by Lincoln and the Republican Party in the abolition of slavery came to be regarded as their greatest legacy, the Republican Party is sometimes referred to as the party of Lincoln. Andrew Prokop, “How Republicans went from the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump, in 13 maps,” Vox (November 10, 2016). This page was last changed on 28 September 2020, at 18:11. The origins of the Democratic donkey can be traced to the 1828 presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Though America’s Founding Fathers distrusted political parties, it wasn’t long before divisions developed among them. U.S. Pres. © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. No Republicans were president between 1933 and 1953, when Dwight Eisenhower began his first of two consecutive terms as president. He was reelected in 1904 but declined to run in 1908, deferring to his secretary of war and friend, William Howard Taft, who won handily. These Republican Reconstruction policies would solidify white Southerners’ loyalty to the Democratic Party for many decades to come. The United States Republican Party is one of the two biggest political parties in the United States of America.The other big party is the Democratic Party.The United States has many other small parties known as third parties..