The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Since the late 1850s, its main political rival has been the Republican Party.
Democratic Party | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chairperson | Ken Martin |
| Governing body | Democratic National Committee |
| Senate Minority Leader | Chuck Schumer |
| House Minority Leader | Hakeem Jeffries |
| Founders |
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| Founded | January 8, 1828 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Preceded by | Democratic-Republican Party |
| Headquarters | 430 South Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Student wing |
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| Youth wing | Young Democrats of America |
| Women's wing | National Federation of Democratic Women |
| Overseas wing | Democrats Abroad |
| Ideology |
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| Political position | Center-left[A] |
| Caucuses | Blue Dog Coalition New Democrat Coalition Congressional Progressive Caucus |
| Colors | Blue |
| Senate | 45 / 100 |
| House of Representatives | 215 / 435 |
| State governors | 23 / 50 |
| State upper chambers | 832 / 1,973 |
| State lower chambers | 2,385 / 5,413 |
| Territorial governors | 2 / 5 |
| Seats in Territorial upper chambers | 21 / 97 |
| Seats in Territorial lower chambers | 9 / 91 |
| Election symbol | |
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| Website | |
| democrats | |
^ A: The Oxford Companion to American Politics observes that the terms "progressive" and "liberal" are "often used interchangeably" in political discourse regarding "the center-left". | |
The Democratic Party was founded in 1828. Martin Van Buren, then serving as a senator from New York, played the central role in building the coalition of state organizations that formed a new party as a vehicle to help elect Andrew Jackson of Tennessee as president of the United States. The Democratic Party is the world's oldest active political party. It initially supported expansive presidential power, agrarianism, and geographical expansionism, while opposing a national bank and high tariffs. It won the presidency only twice between 1860 and 1912, although it won the popular vote two more times in that period. In the late 19th century, it continued to oppose high tariffs and had fierce internal debates on the gold standard. In the early 20th century, it partially (not all factions) supported progressive reforms and opposed imperialism, with Woodrow Wilson winning the White House in 1912 and 1916.
Since Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, the Democratic Party has promoted a liberal platform that includes support for Social Security and unemployment insurance. The New Deal attracted strong support for the party from recent European immigrants but diminished the party's pro-business wing. From late in Roosevelt's administration through the 1950s, a minority in the party's Southern wing joined with conservative Republicans to slow and stop progressive domestic reforms. Following the Great Society era of progressive legislation under Lyndon B. Johnson, who was often able to overcome the conservative coalition in the 1960s, the core bases of the parties shifted, with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic. The party's labor union element has become smaller since the 1970s, and as the American electorate shifted in a more conservative direction following Jimmy Carter's 1980 defeat, the election of Bill Clinton marked a move for the party toward the Third Way, moving the party's economic stance towards market-based economic policy.Barack Obama oversaw the party's passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
In the 21st century, the party is strongest among African Americans,LGBT+ people,urban voters,American Jews,union workers, college graduates,women, and the unmarried. On social issues, it advocates for abortion rights,voting rights,LGBT rights, action on climate change, and the legalization of marijuana. On economic issues, the party favors healthcare reform, free trade, paid sick leave and supporting unions. In foreign policy, the party supports liberal internationalism as well as tough stances against China and Russia.
History
Democratic Party officials often trace its origins to the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the conservative Federalists in 1792. That party died out before the modern Democratic Party was organized; the Jeffersonian party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Historians argue that the modern Democratic Party was first organized in the late 1820s with the election of war hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, making it the world's oldest active political party. It was predominately built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled a wide cadre of politicians in every state behind Jackson.
Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. Democrats have been more liberal on civil rights since 1948, although conservative factions within the Democratic Party that opposed them persisted in the South until the 1960s. On foreign policy, both parties have changed positions several times.
Background
The Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party. The Democratic-Republican Party favored republicanism, a weak federal government, states' rights, agrarian interests (especially Southern planters), and strict adherence to the Constitution. The party opposed a national bank and Great Britain. After the War of 1812, the Federalists virtually disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans, which was prone to splinter along regional lines. The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until 1828, when Andrew Jackson became president. Jackson and Martin Van Buren worked with allies in each state to form a new Democratic Party on a national basis. In the 1830s, the Whig Party coalesced into the main rival to the Democrats.
Before 1860, the Democratic Party supported expansive presidential power,the interests of slave states,agrarianism, and expansionism, while opposing a national bank and high tariffs.
19th century
Jacksonian Era
The Democratic-Republican Party split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe. The faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. Historian Mary Beth Norton explains the transformation in 1828:
Jacksonians believed the people's will had finally prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president. The Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party ... and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics.
Behind the platforms issued by state and national parties stood a widely shared political outlook that characterized the Democrats:
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. ... 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.
Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party. The Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery. In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party. Martin van Buren also helped found the Free Soil Party to oppose the spread of slavery, running as its candidate in the 1848 presidential election, before returning to the Democratic Party and staying loyal to the Union.
U.S. Civil War
The Democrats split over slavery, with Northern and Southern tickets in the election of 1860, in which the Republican Party gained ascendancy. The radical pro-slavery Fire-Eaters led walkouts at the two conventions when the delegates would not adopt a resolution supporting the extension of slavery into territories even if the voters of those territories did not want it. These Southern Democrats nominated the pro-slavery incumbent vice president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for president and General Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for vice president. The Northern Democrats nominated Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for president and former Georgia Governor Herschel V. Johnson for vice president. This fracturing of the Democrats led to a Republican victory and Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States.
As the American Civil War broke out, Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats. The Confederate States of America deliberately avoided organized political parties. Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party in the election of 1864, which featured Andrew Johnson on the Union ticket to attract fellow Democrats. Johnson replaced Lincoln in 1865, but he stayed independent of both parties.
Reconstruction and Redemption
The Democrats benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction after the war and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. After Redeemers ended Reconstruction in the 1870s and following the often extremely violent disenfranchisement of African Americans led by such white supremacist Democratic politicians as Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina in the 1880s and 1890s, the South, voting Democratic, became known as the "Solid South". Although Republicans won all but two presidential elections, the Democrats remained competitive. The party was dominated by pro-business Bourbon Democrats led by Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland, who represented mercantile, banking, and railroad interests; opposed imperialism and overseas expansion; fought for the gold standard; opposed bimetallism; and crusaded against corruption, high taxes and tariffs. Cleveland was elected to non-consecutive presidential terms in 1884 and 1892.
20th century
Progressive Era
Agrarian Democrats demanding free silver, drawing on Populist ideas, overthrew the Bourbon Democrats in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency (a nomination repeated by Democrats in 1900 and 1908). Bryan waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern moneyed interests, but he lost to Republican William McKinley.
The Democrats took control of the House in 1910, and Woodrow Wilson won election as president in 1912 (when the Republicans split) and 1916. Wilson effectively led Congress to put to rest the issues of tariffs, money, and antitrust, which had dominated politics for 40 years, with new progressive laws. He failed to secure Senate passage of the Versailles Treaty (ending the war with Germany and joining the League of Nations). The weakened party was deeply divided by issues such as the KKK and prohibition in the 1920s. However, it did organize new ethnic voters in Northern cities.
After World War I ended and continuing through the Great Depression, the Democratic and Republican Parties both largely believed in American exceptionalism over European monarchies and state socialism that existed elsewhere in the world.
1930s–1960s and the rise of the New Deal coalition
The Great Depression in 1929 that began under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1930 until 1994, the Senate for 44 of 48 years from 1930, and won most presidential elections until 1968. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to the presidency in 1932, came forth with federal government programs called the New Deal. New Deal liberalism meant the regulation of business (especially finance and banking) and the promotion of labor unions as well as federal spending to aid the unemployed, help distressed farmers and undertake large-scale public works projects. It marked the start of the American welfare state. The opponents, who stressed opposition to unions, support for business and low taxes, started calling themselves "conservatives".
Until the 1980s, the Democratic Party was a coalition of two parties divided by the Mason–Dixon line: liberal Democrats in the North and culturally conservative voters in the South, who though benefitting from many of the New Deal public works projects, opposed increasing civil rights initiatives advocated by northeastern liberals. The polarization grew stronger after Roosevelt died. Southern Democrats formed a key part of the bipartisan conservative coalition in an alliance with most of the Midwestern Republicans. The economically activist philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has strongly influenced American liberalism, shaped much of the party's economic agenda after 1932. From the 1930s to the mid-1960s, the liberal New Deal coalition usually controlled the presidency while the conservative coalition usually controlled Congress.
1960s–1980s and the collapse of the New Deal coalition
Issues facing parties and the United States after World War II included the Cold War and the civil rights movement. Republicans attracted conservatives and, after the 1960s, white Southerners from the Democratic coalition with their use of the Southern strategy and resistance to New Deal and Great Society liberalism. Until the 1950s, African Americans had traditionally supported the Republican Party because of its anti-slavery civil rights policies. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Southern states became more reliably Republican in presidential politics, while Northeastern states became more reliably Democratic. Studies show that Southern whites, which were a core constituency in the Democratic Party, shifted to the Republican Party due to racial backlash and social conservatism.
The election of President John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts in 1960 partially reflected this shift. In the campaign, Kennedy attracted a new generation of younger voters. In his agenda dubbed the New Frontier, Kennedy introduced a host of social programs and public works projects, along with enhanced support of the space program, proposing a crewed spacecraft trip to the moon by the end of the decade. He pushed for civil rights initiatives and proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but with his assassination in November 1963, he was not able to see its passage.
Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson was able to persuade the largely conservative Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and with a more progressive Congress in 1965 passed much of the Great Society, including Medicare and Medicaid, which consisted of an array of social programs designed to help the poor, sick, and elderly. Kennedy and Johnson's advocacy of civil rights further solidified black support for the Democrats but had the effect of alienating Southern whites who would eventually gravitate toward the Republican Party, particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. Many conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party, beginning with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the general leftward shift of the party.
The United States' involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s was another divisive issue that further fractured the fault lines of the Democrats' coalition. After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, President Johnson committed a large contingency of combat troops to Vietnam, but the escalation failed to drive the Viet Cong from South Vietnam, resulting in an increasing quagmire, which by 1968 had become the subject of widespread anti-war protests in the United States and elsewhere. With increasing casualties and nightly news reports bringing home troubling images from Vietnam, the costly military engagement became increasingly unpopular, alienating many of the kinds of young voters that the Democrats had attracted in the early 1960s. The protests that year along with assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy (younger brother of John F. Kennedy) climaxed in turbulence at the hotly-contested Democratic National Convention that summer in Chicago (which amongst the ensuing turmoil inside and outside of the convention hall nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey) in a series of events that proved to mark a significant turning point in the decline of the Democratic Party's broad coalition.
Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon was able to capitalize on the confusion of the Democrats that year, and won the 1968 election to become the 37th president. He won re-election in a landslide in 1972 against Democratic nominee George McGovern, who like Robert F. Kennedy, reached out to the younger anti-war and counterculture voters, but unlike Kennedy, was not able to appeal to the party's more traditional white working-class constituencies. During Nixon's second term, his presidency was rocked by the Watergate scandal, which forced him to resign in 1974. He was succeeded by vice president Gerald Ford, who served a brief tenure.
Watergate offered the Democrats an opportunity to recoup, and their nominee Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election. With the initial support of evangelical Christian voters in the South, Carter was temporarily able to reunite the disparate factions within the party, but inflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979–1980 took their toll, resulting in a landslide victory for Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan in 1980, which shifted the political landscape in favor of the Republicans for years to come. The influx of conservative Democrats into the Republican Party is often cited as a reason for the Republican Party's shift further to the right during the late 20th century as well as the shift of its base from the Northeast and Midwest to the South.
1990s and Third Way centrism
With the ascendancy of the Republicans under Ronald Reagan, the Democrats searched for ways to respond yet were unable to succeed by running traditional candidates, such as former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who lost to Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections, respectively. Many Democrats attached their hopes to the future star of Gary Hart, who had challenged Mondale in the 1984 primaries running on a theme of "New Ideas"; and in the subsequent 1988 primaries became the de facto front-runner and virtual "shoo-in" for the Democratic presidential nomination before a sex scandal ended his campaign. The party nevertheless began to seek out a younger generation of leaders, who like Hart had been inspired by the pragmatic idealism of John F. Kennedy.
Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was one such figure, who was elected president in 1992 as the Democratic nominee. The Democratic Leadership Council was a campaign organization connected to Clinton that advocated a realignment and triangulation under the re-branded "New Democrat" label. The party adopted a synthesis of neoliberal economic policies with cultural liberalism, with the voter base after Reagan having shifted considerably to the right. In an effort to appeal both to liberals and to fiscal conservatives, Democrats began to advocate for a balanced budget and market economy tempered by government intervention (mixed economy), along with a continued emphasis on social justice and affirmative action. The economic policy adopted by the Democratic Party, including the former Clinton administration, has been referred to as "Third Way".
The Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 elections to the Republicans, however, in 1996 Clinton was re-elected, becoming the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term. Clinton's vice president Al Gore ran to succeed him as president, and won the popular vote, but after a controversial election dispute over a Florida recount settled by the U.S. Supreme Court (which ruled 5–4 in favor of Bush), he lost the 2000 election to Republican opponent George W. Bush in the Electoral College.
21st century
2000s
In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as the growing concern over global warming, some of the party's key issues in the early 21st century have included combating terrorism while preserving human rights, expanding access to health care, labor rights, and environmental protection. Democrats regained majority control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections. Barack Obama won the Democratic Party's nomination and was elected as the first African American president in 2008. Under the Obama presidency, the party moved forward reforms including an economic stimulus package, the Dodd–Frank financial reform act, and the Affordable Care Act.
2010s
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Democratic Party lost control of the House as well as its majorities in several state legislatures and governorships. The 2010 elections also marked the end of the Democratic Party's electoral dominance in the Southern United States.
In the 2012 elections, President Obama was re-elected, but the party remained in the minority in the House of Representatives and lost control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections. After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party transitioned into the role of an opposition party and held neither the presidency nor Congress for two years. However, the party won back the House in the 2018 midterm elections under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi.
Democrats were extremely critical of President Trump, particularly his policies on immigration, healthcare, and abortion, as well as his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2019, Democrats in the House of Representatives impeached Trump, although he was acquitted in the Republican-controlled Senate.
2020s
In November 2020, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump to win the 2020 presidential election. He began his term with extremely narrow Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. During the Biden presidency, the party has been characterized as adopting an increasingly progressive economic agenda. In 2022, Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. However, she was replacing liberal justice Stephen Breyer, so she did not alter the court's 6–3 split between conservatives (the majority) and liberals. After Dobbs v. Jackson (decided June 24, 2022), which led to abortion bans in much of the country, the Democratic Party rallied behind abortion rights.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats dramatically outperformed historical trends and a widely anticipated red wave did not materialize. The party only narrowly lost its majority in the U.S. House and expanded its majority in the U.S. Senate, along with several gains at the state level.
In July 2024, after a series of age and health concerns, Biden became the first incumbent president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 to withdraw from running for reelection, the first since the 19th century to withdraw after serving only one term, and the only one to ever withdraw after already winning the primaries.
Vice President Kamala Harris—who became Biden's replacement on the ballot after his withdrawal from the race—became the first black woman to be nominated by a major party, but she was defeated in the election by Trump. Harris lost the electoral college 312-226 (including all seven of the anticipated swing states) as well as the popular vote, becoming the first Democratic candidate to do so since John Kerry in 2004, amid what was a global anti-incumbent backlash.
Current status
As of 2025, Democrats hold 23 state governorships, 17 state legislatures, 15 state government trifectas, and the mayorships in the majority of the country's major cities. Three of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democratic presidents. By registered members, the Democratic Party is the largest party in the U.S. and the fourth largest in the world. All totaled, 16 Democrats have served as president of the United States.
Name and symbols
It has been suggested that mascots be split out into another article. (Discuss) (August 2024) |
The Democratic-Republican Party splintered in 1824 into the short-lived National Republican Party and the Jacksonian movement which in 1828 became the Democratic Party. Under the Jacksonian era, the term "The Democracy" was in use by the party, but the name "Democratic Party" was eventually settled upon and became the official name in 1844. Members of the party are called "Democrats" or "Dems".
The most common mascot symbol for the party has been the donkey, or jackass.Andrew Jackson's enemies twisted his name to "jackass" as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal. However, the Democrats liked the common-man implications and picked it up too, therefore the image persisted and evolved. Its most lasting impression came from the cartoons of Thomas Nast from 1870 in Harper's Weekly. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats and the elephant to represent the Republicans.
In the early 20th century, the traditional symbol of the Democratic Party in Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ohio was the rooster, as opposed to the Republican eagle. The rooster was also adopted as an official symbol of the national Democratic Party. In 1904, the Alabama Democratic Party chose, as the logo to put on its ballots, a rooster with the motto "White supremacy – For the right." The words "White supremacy" were replaced with "Democrats" in 1966. In 1996, the Alabama Democratic Party dropped the rooster, citing racist and white supremacist connotations linked with the symbol. The rooster symbol still appears on Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia ballots. In New York, the Democratic ballot symbol is a five-pointed star.
Although both major political parties (and many minor ones) use the traditional American colors of red, white, and blue in their marketing and representations, since election night 2000 blue has become the identifying color for the Democratic Party while red has become the identifying color for the Republican Party. That night, for the first time all major broadcast television networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: blue states for Al Gore (Democratic nominee) and red states for George W. Bush (Republican nominee). Since then, the color blue has been widely used by the media to represent the party. This is contrary to common practice outside of the United States where blue is the traditional color of the right and red the color of the left.
Jefferson-Jackson Day is the annual fundraising event (dinner) held by Democratic Party organizations across the United States. It is named after Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, whom the party regards as its distinguished early leaders.
The song "Happy Days Are Here Again" is the unofficial song of the Democratic Party. It was used prominently when Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention and remains a sentimental favorite for Democrats. For example, Paul Shaffer played the theme on the Late Show with David Letterman after the Democrats won Congress in 2006. "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac was adopted by Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and has endured as a popular Democratic song. The emotionally similar song "Beautiful Day" by the band U2 has also become a favorite theme song for Democratic candidates. John Kerry used the song during his 2004 presidential campaign and several Democratic congressional candidates used it as a celebratory tune in 2006.
As a traditional anthem for its presidential nominating convention, Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" is traditionally performed at the beginning of the Democratic National Convention.
Structure
National committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is responsible for promoting Democratic campaign activities. While the DNC is responsible for overseeing the process of writing the Democratic Platform, the DNC is more focused on campaign and organizational strategy than public policy. In presidential elections, it supervises the Democratic National Convention. The national convention is subject to the charter of the party and the ultimate authority within the Democratic Party when it is in session, with the DNC running the party's organization at other times. Since 2021, the DNC has been chaired by Jaime Harrison.
State parties
Each state also has a state committee, made up of elected committee members as well as ex officio committee members (usually elected officials and representatives of major constituencies), which in turn elects a chair. County, town, city, and ward committees generally are composed of individuals elected at the local level. State and local committees often coordinate campaign activities within their jurisdiction, oversee local conventions, and in some cases primaries or caucuses, and may have a role in nominating candidates for elected office under state law. Rarely do they have much direct funding, but in 2005 DNC Chairman Dean began a program (called the "50 State Strategy") of using DNC national funds to assist all state parties and pay for full-time professional staffers.
In addition, state-level party committees operate in the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and Virgin Islands, the commonwealths of Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, with all but Puerto Rico being active in nominating candidates for both presidential and territorial contests, while Puerto Rico's Democratic Party is organized only to nominate presidential candidates. The Democrats Abroad committee is organized by American voters who reside outside of U.S. territory to nominate presidential candidates. All such party committees are accorded recognition as state parties and are allowed to elect both members to the National Committee as well as delegates to the National Convention.
Major party committees and groups
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) assists party candidates in House races and is chaired by Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington. Similarly, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), chaired by Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, raises funds for Senate races. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), chaired by Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Andrea Stewart-Cousins, is a smaller organization that focuses on state legislative races. The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) is an organization supporting the candidacies of Democratic gubernatorial nominees and incumbents. Likewise, the mayors of the largest cities and urban centers convene as the National Conference of Democratic Mayors.
The DNC sponsors the College Democrats of America (CDA), a student-outreach organization with the goal of training and engaging a new generation of Democratic activists. Democrats Abroad is the organization for Americans living outside the United States. They work to advance the party's goals and encourage Americans living abroad to support the Democrats. The Young Democrats of America (YDA) and the High School Democrats of America (HSDA) are young adult and youth-led organizations respectively that attempt to draw in and mobilize young people for Democratic candidates but operates outside of the DNC.
Political positions
The 21st century Democratic Party differs from other center-left parties around the world in its ideological orientation, in part due to its heterogenous demographic composition. In particular, the Democratic Party's ideology derives from being supported by both racial minorities, particularly African Americans, as well as White voters with high educational attainment.
This makes the Democratic Party different, because it is a big tent party, neither a classically liberal nor a social democratic party ideologically. Its voting demographics are heavily educationally and racially-polarized, but not income polarized. The Democratic Party is weakest among White voters without college degrees in the 21st century. Higher educational attainment is strongly correlated with higher income and wealth, and also strongly correlated with increased ideological support for the Democratic Party's positions among White voters.
This derives in part from unique regional characteristics of the United States, particularly the Southern United States. Racial polarization is extremely high in the Southern United States, with Black Southerners almost entirely voting for the Democratic Party, and White Southerners almost entirely voting for the Republican Party. Also, White Southerners with college degrees are strongly Republican, unlike in most of the rest of the country.African Americans continue to have the lowest incomes of any racial group in the United States.
The Democratic party's social positions derive from those of the New Left, that is cultural liberalism. These include feminism, LGBT rights, drug policy reforms, and environmentalism. The party's platform favors a generous welfare state and a greater measure of social and economic equality. On social issues, it advocates for the continued legality of abortion, the legalization of marijuana, and LGBT rights.
Economic issues
The social safety net and strong labor unions have been at the heart of Democratic economic policy since the New Deal in the 1930s. The Democratic Party's economic policy positions, as measured by votes in Congress, tend to align with those of the middle class. Democrats support a progressive tax system, higher minimum wages, equal opportunity employment, Social Security, universal health care, public education, and subsidized housing. They also support infrastructure development and clean energy investments to achieve economic development and job creation.
Since the 1990s, the party has at times supported centrist economic reforms that cut the size of government and reduced market regulations. The party has generally rejected both laissez-faire economics and market socialism, instead favoring Keynesian economics within a capitalist market-based system.
Fiscal policy
Democrats support a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce economic inequality by making sure that the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes. Democrats and Republicans traditionally take differing stances on eradicating poverty. Brady said "Our poverty level is the direct consequence of our weak social policies, which are a direct consequence of weak political actors". They oppose the cutting of social services, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice. Democrats believe the benefits of social services in monetary and non-monetary terms are a more productive labor force and cultured population and believe that the benefits of this are greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower taxes, especially on top earners, or cuts to social services. Furthermore, Democrats see social services as essential toward providing positive freedom, freedom derived from economic opportunity. The Democratic-led House of Representatives reinstated the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budget rule at the start of the 110th Congress.
Minimum wage
The Democratic Party favors raising the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was an early component of the Democrats' agenda during the 110th Congress. In 2006, the Democrats supported six state-ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and all six initiatives passed.
In 2017, Senate Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. In 2021, Democratic president Joe Biden proposed increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2025. In many states controlled by Democrats, the state minimum wage has been increased to a rate above the federal minimum wage.
Health care
Democrats call for "affordable and quality health care" and favor moving toward universal health care in a variety of forms to address rising healthcare costs. Progressive Democrats politicians favor a single-payer program or Medicare for All, while liberals prefer creating a public health insurance option.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, has been one of the most significant pushes for universal health care. As of December 2019, more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Education
Democrats favor improving public education by raising school standards and reforming the Head Start program. They also support universal preschool, expanding access to primary education, including through charter schools, and are generally opposed to school voucher programs. They call for addressing student loan debt and reforms to reduce college tuition. Other proposals have included tuition-free public universities and reform of standardized testing. Democrats have the long-term aim of having publicly funded college education with low tuition fees (like in much of Europe and Canada), which would be available to every eligible American student. Alternatively, they encourage expanding access to post-secondary education by increasing state funding for student financial aid such as Pell Grants and college tuition tax deductions.
Environment
Democrats believe that the government should protect the environment and have a history of environmentalism. In more recent years, this stance has emphasized renewable energy generation as the basis for an improved economy, greater national security, and general environmental benefits. The Democratic Party is substantially more likely than the Republican Party to support environmental regulation and policies that are supportive of renewable energy.
The Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation lands and encourages open space and rail travel to relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air quality and the economy as it "believe[s] that communities, environmental interests, and the government should work together to protect resources while ensuring the vitality of local economies. Once Americans were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment. They now know this is a false choice".
The foremost environmental concern of the Democratic Party is climate change. Democrats, most notably former Vice President Al Gore, have pressed for stern regulation of greenhouse gases. On October 15, 2007, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build greater knowledge about man-made climate change and laying the foundations for the measures needed to counteract it.
Renewable energy and fossil fuels
Democrats have supported increased domestic renewable energy development, including wind and solar power farms, in an effort to reduce carbon pollution. The party's platform calls for an "all of the above" energy policy including clean energy, natural gas and domestic oil, with the desire of becoming energy independent. The party has supported higher taxes on oil companies and increased regulations on coal power plants, favoring a policy of reducing long-term reliance on fossil fuels. Additionally, the party supports stricter fuel emissions standards to prevent air pollution.
During his presidency, Joe Biden enacted the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which is the largest allocation of funds for addressing climate change in the history of the United States.
Trade
Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has taken widely varying views on international trade throughout its history. The Democratic Party has usually been more supportive of free trade than the Republican Party.
The Democrats dominated the Second Party System and set low tariffs designed to pay for the government but not protect industry. Their opponents the Whigs wanted high protective tariffs but usually were outvoted in Congress. Tariffs soon became a major political issue as the Whigs (1832–1852) and (after 1854) the Republicans wanted to protect their mostly northern industries and constituents by voting for higher tariffs and the Southern Democrats, which had very little industry but imported many goods voted for lower tariffs. After the Second Party System ended in 1854 the Democrats lost control and the new Republican Party had its opportunity to raise rates.
During the Third Party System, Democratic president Grover Cleveland made low tariffs the centerpiece of Democratic Party policies, arguing that high tariffs were an unnecessary and unfair tax on consumers. The South and West generally supported low tariffs, while the industrial North high tariffs. During the Fourth Party System, Democratic president Woodrow Wilson made a drastic lowering of tariff rates a major priority for his presidency. The 1913 Underwood Tariff cut rates, and the new revenues generated by the federal income tax made tariffs much less important in terms of economic impact and political rhetoric.
During the Fifth Party System, the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 was enacted during FDR's administration, marking a sharp departure from the era of protectionism in the United States. American duties on foreign products declined from an average of 46% in 1934 to 12% by 1962. After World War II, the U.S. promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947 during the Truman administration, to minimize tariffs liberalize trade among all capitalist countries.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration and a number of prominent Democrats pushed through a number of agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Barack Obama signed several free trade agreements during his presidency. Joe Biden did not sign any free trade agreements during his presidency.
Social issues
The modern Democratic Party emphasizes social equality and equal opportunity. Democrats support voting rights and minority rights, including LGBT rights. Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation. Carmines and Stimson wrote "the Democratic Party appropriated racial liberalism and assumed federal responsibility for ending racial discrimination."
Ideological social elements in the party include cultural liberalism, civil libertarianism, and feminism. Some Democratic social policies are immigration reform, electoral reform, and women's reproductive rights.
Equal opportunity
The Democratic Party is a staunch supporter of equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, or national origin. The Democratic Party has broad appeal across most socioeconomic and ethnic demographics, as seen in recent exit polls. Democrats also strongly support the Americans with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against people based on physical or mental disability. As such, the Democrats pushed as well the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, a disability rights expansion that became law.
Most Democrats support affirmative action to further equal opportunity. However, in 2020 57% voters in California voted to keep their state constitution's ban on affirmative action, despite Biden winning 63% of the vote in California in the same election.
Voting rights
The party is very supportive of improving "voting rights" as well as election accuracy and accessibility. They support extensions of voting time, including making election day a holiday. They support reforming the electoral system to eliminate gerrymandering, abolishing the electoral college, as well as passing comprehensive campaign finance reform.
Abortion and reproductive rights
The Democratic position on abortion has changed significantly over time. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Republicans generally favored legalized abortion more than Democrats, although significant heterogeneity could be found within both parties. During this time, opposition to abortion tended to be concentrated within the political left in the United States. Liberal Protestants and Catholics (many of whom were Democratic voters) opposed abortion, while most conservative Protestants supported legal access to abortion services.[clarification needed]
In its national platforms from 1992 to 2004, the Democratic Party has called for abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"—namely, keeping it legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental interference in abortion decisions and reducing the number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of reproduction and contraception and incentives for adoption. When Congress voted on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, congressional Democrats were split, with a minority (including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) supporting the ban and the majority of Democrats opposing the legislation.
According to the 2020 Democratic Party platform, "Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion."
Immigration
Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has taken widely varying views on immigration throughout its history. Since the 1990s, the Democratic Party has been more supportive overall of immigration than the Republican Party. Many Democratic politicians have called for systematic reform of the immigration system such that residents that have come into the United States illegally have a pathway to legal citizenship. President Obama remarked in November 2013 that he felt it was "long past time to fix our broken immigration system," particularly to allow "incredibly bright young people" that came over as students to become full citizens. In 2013, Democrats in the Senate passed S. 744, which would reform immigration policy to allow citizenship for illegal immigrants in the United States. The law failed to pass in the House and was never re-introduced after the 113th Congress.
As of 2024, no major immigration reform legislation has been enacted into law in the 21st century, mainly due to opposition by the Republican Party. Opposition to immigration has increased in the 2020s, with a majority of Democrats supporting increasing border security.
LGBT rights
The Democratic position on LGBT rights has changed significantly over time. Before the 2000s, like the Republicans, the Democratic Party often took positions hostile to LGBT rights. As of the 2020s, both voters and elected representatives within the Democratic Party are overwhelmingly supportive of LGBT rights.
Support for same-sex marriage has steadily increased among the general public, including voters in both major parties, since the start of the 21st century. An April 2009 ABC News/Washington Post public opinion poll put support among Democrats at 62%. A 2006 Pew Research Center poll of Democrats found that 55% supported gays adopting children with 40% opposed while 70% support gays in the military, with only 23% opposed. Gallup polling from May 2009 stated that 82% of Democrats support open enlistment. A 2023 Gallup public opinion poll found 84% of Democrats support same-sex marriage, compared to 71% support by the general public and 49% support by Republicans.
The 2004 Democratic National Platform stated that marriage should be defined at the state level and it repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment.John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, did not support same-sex marriage in his campaign. While not stating support of same-sex marriage, the 2008 platform called for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage and removed the need for interstate recognition, supported antidiscrimination laws and the extension of hate crime laws to LGBT people and opposed "don't ask, don't tell". The 2012 platform included support for same-sex marriage and for the repeal of DOMA.
On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting president to say he supports same-sex marriage. Previously, he had opposed restrictions on same-sex marriage such as the Defense of Marriage Act, which he promised to repeal, California's Prop 8, and a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (which he opposed saying that "decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been"), but also stated that he personally believed marriage to be between a man and a woman and that he favored civil unions that would "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples". Earlier, when running for the Illinois Senate in 1996 he said, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages". Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter along with former Democratic presidential nominees Al Gore and Michael Dukakis support same-sex marriage. President Joe Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012, when he became the highest-ranking government official to support it. In 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act; the law repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, which Biden had voted for during his Senate tenure.
Status of Puerto Rico and D.C.
The 2016 Democratic Party platform declares, regarding the status of Puerto Rico: "We are committed to addressing the extraordinary challenges faced by our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. Many stem from the fundamental question of Puerto Rico's political status. Democrats believe that the people of Puerto Rico should determine their ultimate political status from permanent options that do not conflict with the Constitution, laws, and policies of the United States. Democrats are committed to promoting economic opportunity and good-paying jobs for the hardworking people of Puerto Rico. We also believe that Puerto Ricans must be treated equally by Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs that benefit families. Puerto Ricans should be able to vote for the people who make their laws, just as they should be treated equally. All American citizens, no matter where they reside, should have the right to vote for the president of the United States. Finally, we believe that federal officials must respect Puerto Rico's local self-government as laws are implemented and Puerto Rico's budget and debt are restructured so that it can get on a path towards stability and prosperity".
Also, it declares that regarding the status of the District of Columbia: "Restoring our democracy also means finally passing statehood for the District of Columbia, so that the American citizens who reside in the nation's capital have full and equal congressional rights as well as the right to have the laws and budget of their local government respected without Congressional interference."
Legal issues
Gun control
With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide, the Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures, most notably the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Bill of 1993 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994). In its national platform for 2008, the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plan calling for renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. In 2022, Democratic president Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which among other things expanded background checks and provided incentives for states to pass red flag laws. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center poll, 20% of Democrats owned firearms, compared to 32% of the general public and 45% of Republicans.
Death penalty
The Democratic Party's 2020 platform states its opposition to the death penalty. Although most Democrats in Congress have never seriously moved to overturn the rarely used federal death penalty, both Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich have introduced such bills with little success. Democrats have led efforts to overturn state death penalty laws, and prevent the reinstatement of the death penalty in those states which prohibit it, including Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware. During the Clinton administration, Democrats led the expansion of the federal death penalty. These efforts resulted in the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton, which heavily limited appeals in death penalty cases. In 1972, the Democratic Party platform called for the abolition of capital punishment.
During his Illinois Senate career, former President Barack Obama successfully introduced legislation intended to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions in capital cases, requiring videotaping of confessions. When campaigning for the presidency, Obama stated that he supports the limited use of the death penalty, including for people who have been convicted of raping a minor under the age of 12, having opposed the Supreme Court's ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty was unconstitutional in which the victim of a crime was not killed. Obama has stated that he thinks the "death penalty does little to deter crime" and that it is used too frequently and too inconsistently. In June 2016, the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee unanimously adopted an amendment to abolish the death penalty.
The 2024 platform is the first since the 2004 platform, that doesn't mention the death penalty, and the first since 2016 not to call for abolition. However, on December 23, 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole.
Torture
Many Democrats are opposed to the use of torture against individuals apprehended and held prisoner by the United States military, and hold that categorizing such prisoners as unlawful combatants does not release the United States from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Democrats contend that torture is inhumane, damages the United States' moral standing in the world, and produces questionable results. Democrats are largely against waterboarding.
Torture became a divisive issue in the party after Barack Obama was elected president.
Privacy
The Democratic Party believes that individuals should have a right to privacy. For example, many Democrats have opposed the NSA warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
Some Democratic officeholders have championed consumer protection laws that limit the sharing of consumer data between corporations. Democrats have opposed sodomy laws since the 1972 platform which stated that "Americans should be free to make their own choice of life-styles and private habits without being subject to discrimination or prosecution", and believe that government should not regulate consensual noncommercial sexual conduct among adults as a matter of personal privacy.
Foreign policy issues
The foreign policy of the voters of the two major parties has largely overlapped since the 1990s. A Gallup poll in early 2013 showed broad agreement on the top issues, albeit with some divergence regarding human rights and international cooperation through agencies such as the United Nations.
In June 2014, the Quinnipiac Poll asked Americans which foreign policy they preferred:
A) The United States is doing too much in other countries around the world, and it is time to do less around the world and focus more on our own problems here at home. B) The United States must continue to push forward to promote democracy and freedom in other countries worldwide because these efforts make our own country more secure.
Democrats chose A over B by 65% to 32%; Republicans chose A over B by 56% to 39%; and independents chose A over B by 67% to 29%.
Iran sanctions
The Democratic Party has been critical of Iran's nuclear weapon program and supported economic sanctions against the Iranian government. In 2013, the Democratic-led administration worked to reach a diplomatic agreement with the government of Iran to halt the Iranian nuclear weapon program in exchange for international economic sanction relief. As of 2014[update], negotiations had been successful and the party called for more cooperation with Iran in the future. In 2015, the Obama administration agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which provides sanction relief in exchange for international oversight of the Iranian nuclear program. In February 2019, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution calling on the United States to re-enter the JCPOA, which President Trump withdrew from in 2018.
Invasion of Afghanistan
Democrats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate near-unanimously voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists against "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States" in Afghanistan in 2001, supporting the NATO coalition invasion of the nation. Most elected Democrats continued to support the Afghanistan conflict during George W. Bush's presidency. During the 2008 Presidential Election, then-candidate Barack Obama called for a "surge" of troops into Afghanistan. After winning the presidency, Obama followed through, sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Troop levels were 94,000 in December 2011 and kept falling, with a target of 68,000 by fall 2012.
Support for the war among the American people diminished over time. Many Democrats changed their opinion over the course of the war, coming to oppose continuation of the conflict. In July 2008, Gallup found that 41% of Democrats called the invasion a "mistake" while a 55% majority disagreed. A CNN survey in August 2009 stated that a majority of Democrats opposed the war. CNN polling director Keating Holland said: "Nearly two thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan. Three quarters of Democrats oppose the war".
During the 2020 Presidential Election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised to "end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East." Biden went on to win the election, and in April 2021, he announced he would withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year. The last troops left in August, bringing America's 20-year-long military campaign in the country to a close. According to a 2023 AP-NORC poll, a majority of Democrats believed that the War in Afghanistan was not worth it.
Israel
Democrats have historically been a stronger supporter of Israel than Republicans. During the 1940s, the party advocated for the cause of an independent Jewish state over the objections of many conservatives in the Old Right, who strongly opposed it. In 1948, Democratic President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize an independent state of Israel.
The 2020 Democratic Party platform acknowledges a "commitment to Israel's security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad" and that "we oppose any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement". During the 2023 Israel-Hamas War, the party requested a large-scale military aid package to Israel. Biden also announced military support for Israel, condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism, and ordered the US military to build a port to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. However, parts of the Democratic base also became more skeptical of the Israel government. The number of Democrats (and Americans in general) who oppose sending arms to Israel has grown month by month as Israel's war on Gaza continues. Experts say support for Israel could have a negative impact on Democrats in several key states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, in the 2024 presidential election.
Late in 2024, twenty Democrats requested support for US legislation that would ban the arms trade with countries that hinder humanitarian aid.
Europe, Russia, and Ukraine
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was politically and economically opposed by the Biden Administration, who promptly began an increased arming of Ukraine. In October 2023, the Biden administration requested an additional $61.4 billion in aid for Ukraine for the year ahead, but delays in the passage of further aid by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives inhibited progress, with the additional $61 billion in aid to Ukraine added in April 2024.
Demographics
In the 2024 presidential election, the party performed best among voters who were upper income, lived in urban areas,college graduates, identified as Atheist, Agnostic, or Jewish; African Americans,LGBT+, and unmarried. In particular, Kamala Harris' two strongest demographic groups in the 2024 presidential election were African Americans (86-13%) and LGBT voters (86-12%).
Support for the civil rights movement in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson helped increase the Democrats' support within the African American community. African Americans have consistently voted between 85% and 95% Democratic since the 1960s, making African Americans one of the largest of the party's constituencies.
According to the Pew Research Center, 78.4% of Democrats in the 116th United States Congress were Christian. However, the vast majority of white evangelical and Latter-day Saint Christians favor the Republican Party. The party also receives strong support from non-religious voters.
Younger Americans have tended to vote mainly for Democratic candidates in recent years, particularly those under the age of 30.
Since 1980, a "gender gap" has seen stronger support for the Democratic Party among women than among men. Unmarried and divorced women are more likely to vote for Democrats. Although women supported Obama over Mitt Romney by a margin of 55–44% in 2012, Romney prevailed amongst married women, 53–46%. Obama won unmarried women 67–31%. According to a December 2019 study, "White women are the only group of female voters who support Republican Party candidates for president. They have done so by a majority in all but 2 of the last 18 elections".
Race
Referring to the map of the White vote, Kamala Harris in 2024 won every state where Joe Biden won the White vote in 2020. Republican Donald Trump won every state where Joe Biden lost the White vote except for Virginia. Virginia is both 20% African American and its White voters are much less Republican than those of other Southern states, because Northern Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area is a Democratic stronghold.
New Mexico is half-Hispanic (49.3%), as the most heavily-Hispanic state in the country. Of the 19 states and the District of Columbia won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, all except New Mexico had above-average educational attainment. New Mexico also had the lowest population density and the highest poverty rate of any state carried by Harris.
Region
Geographically, the party is strongest in the Northeastern United States, parts of the Great Lakes region and Southwestern United States, and the West Coast. The party is also very strong in major cities, regardless of region.
The Democratic Party gradually lost its power in the Southern United States since 1964. Although Richard Nixon carried 49 states in 1972, including every Southern state, the Republican Party remained quite weak at the local and state levels across the entire South for decades. Republicans first won a majority of U.S. House seats in the South in the 1994 "Republican Revolution", and only began to dominate the South after the 2010 elections. Since the 2010s, White Southerners are the Republican Party's strongest racial demographic, in some Deep South states voting nearly as Republican as African Americans vote Democratic. This is partially attributable to religiosity, with White evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt, which covers most of the South, being the Republican Party's strongest religious demographic.
The Democratic Party is particularly strong in the West Coast and Northeastern United States. In particular, the Democratic Party receives its strongest support from White voters in these two regions. This is attributable to the two regions having the highest educational attainment in the country and being part of the "Unchurched Belt," with the lowest rates of religiosity in the country.
The Democratic Party's support in the Midwest and Southwest are more mixed, with varying levels of support from White voters in both regions. In the Midwest, the Democratic Party receives varying levels of support, with some states safely Democratic, some swing states, and some safely Republican. In the Southwest, the Democratic Party also relies on Hispanic voters.
The Democratic Party is particularly weak in the Great Plains and some Mountain states. In particular, the states of Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska,Kansas, and Oklahoma have not voted for the Democratic Party since the 1964 presidential election. Montana has not voted for the Democratic Party since the 1992 presidential election.
White voters have considerable regional variations. In 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris lost Southern White voters 32-67% and Midwestern White voters 40-59%. Harris tied among White voters in the Northeastern United States 49-49%, and won White voters in the Western United States 52-45%. Harris lost White voters in the country as a whole to Trump 42-57%.
Population density
The Democratic Party's support is strongly positively correlated with increased population density, consistent with the urban-rural divide observed globally. Notably, in the 2024 presidential election, the swings against Kamala Harris were inversely correlated to population density, shrinking the urban-rural divide slightly. Harris still received higher support as population density increased. But relative to 2020, urban areas had the largest swings against Harris, suburban areas had lesser swings against Harris, and rural areas had the smallest swings against Harris.
Specifically, Harris won voters in urban areas (60-38%), narrowly lost voters in suburban areas (47-51%), and lost voters in rural areas (34-64%). The urban-rural divide holds after controlling for race.
- Harris won White voters in urban areas (53-45%), lost them in suburban areas (41-57%), and lost them in rural areas (31-68%).
- Harris won Hispanic voters in urban areas (57-39%) and suburban areas (51-48%), and lost them in rural areas (33-66%).
- Harris won African American voters in urban areas (89-10%), suburban areas (86-12%), and rural areas (71-27%).
The only state of the ten least densely populated that Harris won was New Mexico, which is half-Hispanic (49.3%).
Income and wealth
The victory of Republican Donald Trump in 2016 brought about a realignment in which many voters without college degrees, also referred to as "working class" voters by many sources, voted Republican. Until 2016, white voters with college degrees were a Republican-leaning group.
Until 2016, lower income was strongly correlated to voting for the Democratic Party among the general electorate. However, in all three of Trump's elections in 2016, 2020, and 2024, the previous correlation between lower incomes and voting for the Democratic Party was largely eliminated. For White voters, instead higher educational attainment was strongly correlated with higher support for the Democratic Party.
In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris did better among higher-income voters than lower-income voters for the first time ever in modern American political history. Two causes of this are higher educational attainment being strongly correlated to higher income, and the 2021-2023 inflation surge, because lower-income voters lose purchasing power while higher-income voters gain from asset prices increasing due to inflation, including stocks and real estate.
- Among White voters in 2024, income was negatively correlated with support for Kamala Harris. Specifically, Harris lost White voters making less than $30,000 (34-63%), those making between $30,000 to $49,999 (37-62%), and those making $50,000 to $99,999 (42-56%). Harris only narrowly lost White voters making $100,000 to $199,999 (49-50%) and those making more than $200,000 (48-51%).
- Among the electorate as a whole, Harris lost those making less than $50,000 (48-50%), those making between $50,000 and $99,999 (46-52%), and won those making over $100,000 (51-47%).
According to a 2022 Gallup poll, roughly equal proportions of Democrats (64-35%) and Republicans (66-34%) had money invested in the stock market.
Education
In the 2020 presidential election, college-educated White voters in all 50 states voted more Democratic than non-college White voters, as displayed in the two maps. After controlling for education, there still remain huge variations by state and region.
- Southern White voters with college degrees remain strongly Republican, with Harris losing them 41-57% in the 2024 presidential election. Harris won White voters with college degrees in the Midwestern United States 50-48%, the Northeastern United States 61-38%, and in the Western United States 67-30%. Harris won White voters with college degrees as a whole 53-45%.
- Harris lost White voters without college degrees 24-75% in the Southern United States, 32-67% in the Midwestern United States, 37-61% in the Northeastern United States, and 42-56% in the Western United States. Harris lost White voters without college degrees as a whole 32-66%.
In the 2024 presidential election, among White voters educational attainment was strongly positively correlated with support for Kamala Harris. In particular, Harris lost White voters with high school or less 25-73%, an Associate degree 31-67%, and some college 38-61%. Harris tied with Trump among White voters with a Bachelor's degree 49-49%, and won White voters with a graduate degree 58-40%.
Harris did improve compared to Biden with White women with college degrees (58-41% vs. 54-45%). Harris lost White men with college degrees (48-50%) by the same as the popular vote. Harris lost White women without college degrees (35-63%) and White men without college degrees (29-69%).
According to a Gallup poll in November 2024, unionization rates were positively correlated to increased educational attainment and higher income. In particular, 15% of those with graduate degrees, 8% with bachelor's degrees, 9% with some college, and 5% with high school or less were unionized. Also, 11% of those with household incomes of $100,000 or more, 7% of those with $40,000 to $99,999, and 3% with less than $40,000 were unionized. Also only 6% of those in the private sector were unionized, compared to 28% of government employees.
Many Democrats without college degrees differ from liberals in their more socially moderate views, and are more likely to belong to an ethnic minority. White voters with college degrees are more likely to live in urban areas.
- There was no difference in support for Harris from African Americans based on education, with Harris winning African Americans with and without a college degree 86-13%.
- There was a modest difference in support for Harris among Hispanic voters with a college degree (54-42%) and without a college degree (51-48%). This was far less than the differences among Hispanic voters in urban (57-39%), suburban (51-48%), and rural areas (33-66%).
Factions
Upon foundation, the Democratic Party supported agrarianism and the Jacksonian democracy movement of President Andrew Jackson, representing farmers and rural interests and traditional Jeffersonian democrats. Since the 1890s, especially in northern states, the party began to favor more liberal positions (the term "liberal" in this sense describes modern liberalism, rather than classical liberalism or economic liberalism). Historically, the party has represented farmers, laborers, and religious and ethnic minorities as it has opposed unregulated business and finance and favored progressive income taxes.
In the 1930s, the party began advocating social programs targeted at the poor. Before the New Deal, the party had a fiscally conservative, pro-business wing, typified by Grover Cleveland and Al Smith. The party was dominant in the Southern United States until President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In foreign policy, internationalism (including interventionism) was a dominant theme from 1913 to the mid-1960s. The major influences for liberalism were labor unions (which peaked in the 1936–1952 era) and African Americans. Environmentalism has been a major component since the 1970s.
Even after the New Deal, until the 2010s, the party still had a fiscally conservative faction, such as John Nance Garner and Howard W. Smith. The party's Southern conservative wing began shrinking after President Lyndon B. Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and largely died out in the 2010s, as the Republican Party built up its Southern base. The party still receives support from African Americans and urban areas in the Southern United States.
The 21st century Democratic Party is predominantly a coalition of centrists, liberals, and progressives, with significant overlap between the three groups. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that among Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters, 47% identify as liberal or very liberal, 38% identify as moderate, and 14% identify as conservative or very conservative. Political scientists characterize the Democratic Party as less ideologically cohesive than the Republican Party due to the broader diversity of coalitions that compose the Democratic Party.
The party has lost significant ground with voters without college degrees in the 21st century, particularly white voters in the South, but also in the Midwest and among non-White voters except for African Americans. In 2024, Democrats lost their last Senate seats in red states.
Democrats have consistently won voters with graduate degrees since the 1990s, including a majority of White voters with graduate degrees. Since the 2010s, the party's main demographic gains have been among White voters with college degrees, which were previously a Republican-leaning group until 2016. The party still receives extremely strong support from African Americans, but has lost ground among other racial minorities, including Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.
Liberals
Modern liberals are a large portion of the Democratic base. According to 2018 exit polls, liberals constituted 27% of the electorate, and 91% of American liberals favored the candidate of the Democratic Party.White-collar college-educated professionals were mostly Republican until the 1950s, but they had become a vital component of the Democratic Party by the early 2000s.
According to a 2025 Gallup poll, 37% of American voters identify as "conservative" or "very conservative", 34% as "moderate", and 25% as "liberal" or "very liberal". For Democrats, 9% identified as conservative, 34% as moderate, and 55% as liberal.
A large majority of liberals favor moving toward universal health care. A majority also favor diplomacy over military action; stem cell research, same-sex marriage, stricter gun control, environmental protection laws, as well as the preservation of abortion rights. Immigration and cultural diversity are deemed positive as liberals favor cultural pluralism, a system in which immigrants retain their native culture in addition to adopting their new culture. Most liberals oppose increased military spending and the mixing of church and state. As of 2020, the three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition were the AFL–CIO and Change to Win labor federations as well as the National Education Association, a large, unaffiliated teachers' union. Important issues for labor unions include supporting unionized manufacturing jobs, raising the minimum wage, and promoting broad social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
This ideological group is strongly correlated with high educational attainment. According to the Pew Research Center, 49% were college graduates, the highest figure of any typographical group. It was also the fastest growing typological group since the late 1990s to the present. Liberals include most of the academia and large portions of the professional class.
Moderates
Moderate Democrats, or New Democrats, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. Running as a New Democrat, Bill Clinton won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. They are an economically liberal and "Third Way" faction that dominated the party for around 20 years, until the beginning of Obama's presidency. They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition.
The Blue Dog Coalition was formed during the 104th Congress to give members from the Democratic Party representing conservative-leaning districts a unified voice after the Democrats' loss of Congress in the 1994 Republican Revolution. However, in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the Coalition's focus shifted towards ideological centrism. One of the most influential centrist groups was the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a nonprofit organization that advocated centrist positions for the party. The DLC disbanded in 2011.
Some Democratic elected officials have self-declared as being centrists, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator Mark Warner, Kansas governor Laura Kelly, former Senator Jim Webb, and President Joe Biden. The New Democrat Network supports socially liberal and fiscally moderate Democratic politicians and is associated with the congressional New Democrat Coalition in the House.Annie Kuster is the chair of the coalition, and former senator and President Barack Obama was self-described as a New Democrat. In the 21st century, some former Republican moderates have switched to the Democratic Party.
Progressives
Progressives are the most left-leaning faction in the party and support strong business regulations, social programs, and workers' rights. In 2014, progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren set out "Eleven Commandments of Progressivism": tougher regulation on corporations; affordable education; scientific investment and environmentalism; net neutrality; increased wages; equal pay for women; collective bargaining rights; defending social programs; same-sex marriage; immigration reform; and unabridged access to reproductive healthcare. The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a caucus of progressive Democrats chaired by Pramila Jayapal of Washington. Its members have included Representatives Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, John Conyers of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington, Barbara Lee of California, and Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Ed Markey of Massachusetts were members of the caucus when in the House of Representatives. As of 2024, the CPC is the second-largest ideological caucus in the House Democratic Caucus by voting members, behind the New Democrat Coalition. Senator Bernie Sanders has often been viewed as a leader of the progressive movement; he ran presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. Other members of the progressive faction include the Squad.
In the aftermath of Kamala Harris losing the 2024 presidential election, the influence of the progressive faction has declined.[why?]
Democratic presidents
As of 2025[update], there have been a total of 16 Democratic presidents.
| # | Name (lifespan) | Portrait | State | Presidency start date | Presidency end date | Time in office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) |   | Tennessee | March 4, 1829 | March 4, 1837 | 8 years, 0 days |
| 8 | Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) |   | New York | March 4, 1837 | March 4, 1841 | 4 years, 0 days |
| 11 | James K. Polk (1795–1849) |   | Tennessee | March 4, 1845 | March 4, 1849 | 4 years, 0 days |
| 14 | Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) |   | New Hampshire | March 4, 1853 | March 4, 1857 | 4 years, 0 days |
| 15 | James Buchanan (1791–1868) |   | Pennsylvania | March 4, 1857 | March 4, 1861 | 4 years, 0 days |
| 17 | Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) |   | Tennessee | April 15, 1865 | March 4, 1869 | 3 years, 323 days |
| 22 | Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) |   | New York | March 4, 1885 | March 4, 1889 | 8 years, 0 days |
| 24 | March 4, 1893 | March 4, 1897 | ||||
| 28 | Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) |   | New Jersey | March 4, 1913 | March 4, 1921 | 8 years, 0 days |
| 32 | Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) |   | New York | March 4, 1933 | April 12, 1945 | 12 years, 39 days |
| 33 | Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) |   | Missouri | April 12, 1945 | January 20, 1953 | 7 years, 283 days |
| 35 | John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) |   | Massachusetts | January 20, 1961 | November 22, 1963 | 2 years, 306 days |
| 36 | Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) |   | Texas | November 22, 1963 | January 20, 1969 | 5 years, 59 days |
| 39 | Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) |   | Georgia | January 20, 1977 | January 20, 1981 | 4 years, 0 days |
| 42 | Bill Clinton (born 1946) |   | Arkansas | January 20, 1993 | January 20, 2001 | 8 years, 0 days |
| 44 | Barack Obama (born 1961) |   | Illinois | January 20, 2009 | January 20, 2017 | 8 years, 0 days |
| 46 | Joe Biden (born 1942) |   | Delaware | January 20, 2021 | January 20, 2025 | 4 years, 0 days |
Recent electoral history
In congressional elections: 1950–present
| House of Representatives | President | Senate | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election year | No. of seats won | +/– | No. of seats won | +/– | Election year | |||
| 1950 | 235 / 435 |  28 | Harry S. Truman | 49 / 96 | 5 | 1950 | ||
| 1952 | 213 / 435 | 22 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | 47 / 96 | 2 | 1952 | ||
| 1954 | 232 / 435 |  19 | 49 / 96 | 2 | 1954 | |||
| 1956 | 234 / 435 | 2 | 49 / 96 |  0 | 1956 | |||
| 1958 | 283 / 437 | 49 | 64 / 98 | 15 | 1958 | |||
| 1960 | 262 / 437 | 21 | John F. Kennedy | 64 / 100 | 1 | 1960 | ||
| 1962 | 258 / 435 | 4 | 66 / 100 | 3 | 1962 | |||
| 1964 | 295 / 435 | 37 | Lyndon B. Johnson | 68 / 100 | 2 | 1964 | ||
| 1966 | 248 / 435 | 47 | 64 / 100 | 3 | 1966 | |||
| 1968 | 243 / 435 | 5 | Richard Nixon | 57 / 100 | 5 | 1968 | ||
| 1970 | 255 / 435 | 12 | 54 / 100 | 3 | 1970 | |||
| 1972 | 242 / 435 | 13 | 56 / 100 | 2 | 1972 | |||
| 1974 | 291 / 435 | 49 | Gerald Ford | 60 / 100 | 4 | 1974 | ||
| 1976 | 292 / 435 | 1 | Jimmy Carter | 61 / 100 | 0 | 1976 | ||
| 1978 | 277 / 435 | 15 | 58 / 100 | 3 | 1978 | |||
| 1980 | 243 / 435 | 34 | Ronald Reagan | 46 / 100 | 12 | 1980 | ||
| 1982 | 269 / 435 | 26 | 46 / 100 | 1 | 1982 | |||
| 1984 | 253 / 435 | 16 | 47 / 100 | 2 | 1984 | |||
| 1986 | 258 / 435 | 5 | 55 / 100 | 8 | 1986 | |||
| 1988 | 260 / 435 | 2 | George H. W. Bush | 55 / 100 | 1 | 1988 | ||
| 1990 | 267 / 435 | 7 | 56 / 100 | 1 | 1990 | |||
| 1992 | 258 / 435 | 9 | Bill Clinton | 57 / 100 | 1 | 1992 | ||
| 1994 | 204 / 435 | 54 | 47 / 100 | 10 | 1994 | |||
| 1996 | 206 / 435 | 2 | 45 / 100 | 2 | 1996 | |||
| 1998 | 211 / 435 | 5 | 45 / 100 | 0 | 1998 | |||
| 2000 | 212 / 435 | 1 | George W. Bush | 50 / 100 | 5 | 2000 | ||
| 2002 | 204 / 435 | 7 | 49 / 100 | 2 | 2002 | |||
| 2004 | 202 / 435 | 2 | 45 / 100 | 4 | 2004 | |||
| 2006 | 233 / 435 | 31 | 51 / 100 | 6 | 2006 | |||
| 2008 | 257 / 435 | 21 | Barack Obama | 59 / 100 | 8 | 2008 | ||
| 2010 | 193 / 435 | 63 | 53 / 100 | 6 | 2010 | |||
| 2012 | 201 / 435 | 8 | 55 / 100 | 2 | 2012 | |||
| 2014 | 188 / 435 | 13 | 46 / 100 | 9 | 2014 | |||
| 2016 | 194 / 435 | 6 | Donald Trump | 48 / 100 | 2 | 2016 | ||
| 2018 | 235 / 435 | 41 | 47 / 100 | 1 | 2018 | |||
| 2020 | 222 / 435 | 13 | Joe Biden | 50 / 100 | 3 | 2020 | ||
| 2022 | 213 / 435 | 9 | 51 / 100 | 1 | 2022 | |||
| 2024 | 215 / 435 | 2 | Donald Trump | 47 / 100 | 4 | 2024 | ||
In presidential elections: 1828–present
| Election year | Presidential ticket | Votes | Vote % | Electoral votes | +/– | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1828 | Andrew Jackson John C. Calhoun | 642,553 | 56.0 | 178 / 261 | 178 | Won |
| 1832 | Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren | 701,780 | 54.2 | 219 / 286 | 41 | Won |
| 1836 | Martin Van Buren Richard Mentor Johnson | 764,176 | 50.8 | 170 / 294 | 49 | Won |
| 1840 | Martin Van Buren None | 1,128,854 | 46.8 | 60 / 294 | 110 | Lost |
| 1844 | James K. Polk George M. Dallas | 1,339,494 | 49.5 | 170 / 275 | 110 | Won |
| 1848 | Lewis Cass William O. Butler | 1,223,460 | 42.5 | 127 / 290 | 43 | Lost |
| 1852 | Franklin Pierce William R. King | 1,607,510 | 50.8 | 254 / 296 | 127 | Won |
| 1856 | James Buchanan John C. Breckinridge | 1,836,072 | 45.3 | 174 / 296 | 80 | Won |
| 1860 | Stephen A. Douglas Herschel V. Johnson | 1,380,202 | 29.5 | 12 / 303 | 162 | Lost |
| 1864 | George B. McClellan George H. Pendleton | 1,812,807 | 45.0 | 21 / 233 | 9 | Lost |
| 1868 | Horatio Seymour Francis Preston Blair Jr. | 2,706,829 | 47.3 | 80 / 294 | 59 | Lost |
| 1872 | Horace Greeley Benjamin G. Brown (Liberal Republican) | 2,834,761 | 43.8 | 69 / 352 | 11 | Lost |
| 1876 | Samuel J. Tilden Thomas A. Hendricks | 4,288,546 | 50.9 | 184 / 369 | 115 | Lost |
| 1880 | Winfield Scott Hancock William H. English | 4,444,260 | 48.2 | 155 / 369 | 29 | Lost |
| 1884 | Grover Cleveland Thomas A. Hendricks | 4,914,482 | 48.9 | 219 / 401 | 64 | Won |
| 1888 | Grover Cleveland Allen G. Thurman | 5,534,488 | 48.6 | 168 / 401 | 51 | Lost |
| 1892 | Grover Cleveland Adlai Stevenson I | 5,556,918 | 46.0 | 277 / 444 | 109 | Won |
| 1896 | William Jennings Bryan Arthur Sewall | 6,509,052 | 46.7 | 176 / 447 | 101 | Lost |
| 1900 | William Jennings Bryan Adlai Stevenson I | 6,370,932 | 45.5 | 155 / 447 | 21 | Lost |
| 1904 | Alton B. Parker Henry G. Davis | 5,083,880 | 37.6 | 140 / 476 | 15 | Lost |
| 1908 | William Jennings Bryan John W. Kern | 6,408,984 | 43.0 | 162 / 483 | 22 | Lost |
| 1912 | Woodrow Wilson Thomas R. Marshall | 6,296,284 | 41.8 | 435 / 531 | 273 | Won |
| 1916 | Woodrow Wilson Thomas R. Marshall | 9,126,868 | 49.2 | 277 / 531 | 158 | Won |
| 1920 | James M. Cox Franklin D. Roosevelt | 9,139,661 | 34.2 | 127 / 531 | 150 | Lost |
| 1924 | John W. Davis Charles W. Bryan | 8,386,242 | 28.8 | 136 / 531 | 9 | Lost |
| 1928 | Al Smith Joseph T. Robinson | 15,015,464 | 40.8 | 87 / 531 | 49 | Lost |
| 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt John Nance Garner | 22,821,277 | 57.4 | 472 / 531 | 385 | Won |
| 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt John Nance Garner | 27,747,636 | 60.8 | 523 / 531 | 51 | Won |
| 1940 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Henry A. Wallace | 27,313,945 | 54.7 | 449 / 531 | 74 | Won |
| 1944 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman | 25,612,916 | 53.4 | 432 / 531 | 17 | Won |
| 1948 | Harry S. Truman Alben W. Barkley | 24,179,347 | 49.6 | 303 / 531 | 129 | Won |
| 1952 | Adlai Stevenson II John Sparkman | 27,375,090 | 44.3 | 89 / 531 | 214 | Lost |
| 1956 | Adlai Stevenson II Estes Kefauver | 26,028,028 | 42.0 | 73 / 531 | 16 | Lost |
| 1960 | John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson | 34,220,984 | 49.7 | 303 / 537 | 230 | Won |
| 1964 | Lyndon B. Johnson Hubert Humphrey | 43,127,041 | 61.1 | 486 / 538 | 183 | Won |
| 1968 | Hubert Humphrey Edmund Muskie | 31,271,839 | 42.7 | 191 / 538 | 295 | Lost |
| 1972 | George McGovern Sargent Shriver | 29,173,222 | 37.5 | 17 / 538 | 174 | Lost |
| 1976 | Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale | 40,831,881 | 50.1 | 297 / 538 | 280 | Won |
| 1980 | Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale | 35,480,115 | 41.0 | 49 / 538 | 248 | Lost |
| 1984 | Walter Mondale Geraldine Ferraro | 37,577,352 | 40.6 | 13 / 538 | 36 | Lost |
| 1988 | Michael Dukakis Lloyd Bentsen | 41,809,074 | 45.6 | 111 / 538 | 98 | Lost |
| 1992 | Bill Clinton Al Gore | 44,909,806 | 43.0 | 370 / 538 | 259 | Won |
| 1996 | Bill Clinton Al Gore | 47,401,185 | 49.2 | 379 / 538 | 9 | Won |
| 2000 | Al Gore Joe Lieberman | 50,999,897 | 48.4 | 266 / 538 | 113 | Lost |
| 2004 | John Kerry John Edwards | 59,028,444 | 48.3 | 251 / 538 | 15 | Lost |
| 2008 | Barack Obama Joe Biden | 69,498,516 | 52.9 | 365 / 538 | 114 | Won |
| 2012 | Barack Obama Joe Biden | 65,915,795 | 51.1 | 332 / 538 | 33 | Won |
| 2016 | Hillary Clinton Tim Kaine | 65,853,514 | 48.2 | 227 / 538 | 105 | Lost |
| 2020 | Joe Biden Kamala Harris | 81,283,501 | 51.3 | 306 / 538 | 79 | Won |
| 2024 | Kamala Harris Tim Walz | 75,017,613 | 48.3 | 226 / 538 | 80 | Lost |
See also
- Democratic Party (United States) organizations
- List of political parties in the United States
- List of United States Democratic Party presidential candidates
- List of United States Democratic Party presidential tickets
- Political party strength in U.S. states
- Politics of the United States
- List of major liberal parties considered centre-left
Notes
- There are 45 senators who are members of the party; however, two independent senators, Angus King and Bernie Sanders, caucus with the Democrats.
- Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892
- All three incumbents in the 20th century to withdraw or not seek reelection—Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson—had succeeded to the presidency when their predecessor died, then won a second term in their own right. Three presidents in the 1800s made and kept pledges to serve only one term, most recently Rutherford B. Hayes.
- Three Democrats (Barack Obama in 2008, Joe Biden in 2020, and Kamala Harris in 2024) have since won an electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, but Johnson remains the last Democrat to carry the state as a whole.
- Elected as Vice President with the National Union Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election. Ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Rejoined the Democratic Party in 1868.
- Died in office.
- Republican Vice President Dick Cheney provided a tie-breaking vote, giving Republicans a majority until June 6, 2001, when Jim Jeffords left Republicans to join the Democratic Caucus.
- Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats.
- Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris provided a tie-breaking vote, giving Democrats a majority throughout the 117th Congress.
- While there was no official Democratic nominee, the majority of the Democratic electors still cast their electoral votes for incumbent Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson.
- Although Tilden won a majority of the popular vote, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.
- Although Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican Benjamin Harrison won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.
- Although Gore won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican George W. Bush won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.
- Although Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican Donald Trump won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.
References
- "About the Democratic Party". Democrats. March 4, 2019. Archived from the original on April 6, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2022.
For 171 years, [the Democratic National Committee] has been responsible for governing the Democratic Party
- Democratic Party (March 12, 2022). "The Charter & The Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States" (PDF). p. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 27, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2022.
The Democratic National Committee shall have general responsibility for the affairs of the Democratic Party between National Conventions
- Cole, Donald B. (1970). Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire, 1800–1851. Harvard University Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-67-428368-8.
- Arnold, N. Scott (2009). Imposing values: an essay on liberalism and regulation. Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780495501121. Archived from the original on October 2, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
Modern liberalism occupies the left-of-center in the traditional political spectrum and is represented by the Democratic Party in the United States.
- Geismer, Lily (2015). Don't blame us: suburban liberals and the transformation of the Democratic party. Politics and society in twentieth-century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15723-8.
- Cebul, Brent; Geismer, Lily, eds. (2025). Mastery and drift: professional-class liberals since the 1960s. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-83811-3.
- Bacon, Perry Jr. (March 11, 2019). "The Six Wings Of The Democratic Party". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on August 15, 2021. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
- Levitz, Eric (October 18, 2018). "America Already Has a Centrist Party. It's Called the Democrats". Intelligencer. Retrieved October 2, 2024.
- Ball, Molly. "No, Liberals Don't Control the Democratic Party". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
- Gaudiano, Nicole. "Liberals seek 'ideological shift' in the Democratic Party". USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
- Alterman, Eric (2008). Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America. Penguin. p. 339. ISBN 9780670018604. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
Suffice to say that there has not been a huge swing away from the center since the 1970s.
- Stein, Letita; Cornwell, Susan; Tanfani, Joseph (August 23, 2018). "Inside the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party". Reuters. Archived from the original on June 13, 2022. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
- Rae, Nicol C. (June 2007). "Be Careful What You Wish For: The Rise of Responsible Parties in American National Politics". Annual Review of Political Science. 10 (1). Annual Reviews: 169–191. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.071105.100750. ISSN 1094-2939.
What are we to make of American parties at the dawn of the twenty-first century? ... The impact of the 1960s civil rights revolution has been to create two more ideologically coherent parties: a generally liberal or center-left party and a conservative party.
- Cronin, James E.; Ross, George W.; Shoch, James (August 24, 2011). "Introduction: The New World of the Center-Left". What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-5079-8. Archived from the original on August 20, 2024. Retrieved August 7, 2024. pp. 17, 22, 182:
Including the American Democratic Party in a comparative analysis of center-left parties is unorthodox, since unlike Europe, America has not produced a socialist movement tied to a strong union movement. Yet the Democrats may have become center-left before anyone else, obliged by their different historical trajectory to build complex alliances with social groups other than the working class and to deal with unusually powerful capitalists ... Taken together, the three chapters devoted to the United States show that the center-left in America faces much the same set of problems as elsewhere and, especially in light of the election results from 2008, that the Democratic Party's potential to win elections, despite its current slide in approval, may be at least equal to that of any center-left party in Europe ... Despite the setback in the 2010 midterms, together the foregoing trends have put the Democrats in a position to eventually build a dominant center-left majority in the United States.
- Bruner, Christopher (January 1, 2018). "Center-Left Politics and Corporate Governance: What Is the 'Progressive' Agenda?". Brigham Young University Law Review: 267–338.
While these dynamics have remained have remained important to the Democratic Party's electoral strategy since the 1990s, the finance-driven coalition described above remains high controverisal and unstable, reflecting the fact that core intellectual and ideological tensions in the platform of the U.S. center-left persist.
- Hacker, Jacob S.; Malpas, Amelia; Pierson, Paul; Zacher, Sam (December 27, 2023). "Bridging the Blue Divide: The Democrats' New Metro Coalition and the Unexpected Prominence of Redistribution". Perspectives on Politics. 22 (3). Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association: 3. doi:10.1017/S1537592723002931. ISSN 1537-5927.
We conclude by considering why Democrats have taken this course, why they are not perceived as having done so, and why, at this fraught juncture for American democratic capitalism, political scientists could learn much from closer examination of the rich world's largest center-left party.
- Zacher, Sam (June 2024). "Polarization of the Rich: The New Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution". Perspectives on Politics. 22 (2): 338–356.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States Since the late 1850s its main political rival has been the Republican Party Democratic PartyChairpersonKen MartinGoverning bodyDemocratic National CommitteeSenate Minority LeaderChuck SchumerHouse Minority LeaderHakeem JeffriesFoundersAndrew Jackson Martin Van BurenFoundedJanuary 8 1828 197 years ago 1828 01 08 Baltimore Maryland U S Preceded byDemocratic Republican PartyHeadquarters430 South Capitol St SE Washington D C U S Student wingHigh School Democrats of AmericaCollege Democrats of AmericaYouth wingYoung Democrats of AmericaWomen s wingNational Federation of Democratic WomenOverseas wingDemocrats AbroadIdeologyMajority LiberalismFactions CentrismProgressivismPolitical positionCenter left A CaucusesBlue Dog Coalition New Democrat Coalition Congressional Progressive CaucusColors BlueSenate45 100House of Representatives215 435State governors23 50State upper chambers832 1 973State lower chambers2 385 5 413Territorial governors2 5Seats in Territorial upper chambers21 97Seats in Territorial lower chambers9 91Election symbolWebsitedemocrats wbr orgPolitics of the United StatesPolitical partiesElections A The Oxford Companion to American Politics observes that the terms progressive and liberal are often used interchangeably in political discourse regarding the center left The Democratic Party was founded in 1828 Martin Van Buren then serving as a senator from New York played the central role in building the coalition of state organizations that formed a new party as a vehicle to help elect Andrew Jackson of Tennessee as president of the United States The Democratic Party is the world s oldest active political party It initially supported expansive presidential power agrarianism and geographical expansionism while opposing a national bank and high tariffs It won the presidency only twice between 1860 and 1912 although it won the popular vote two more times in that period In the late 19th century it continued to oppose high tariffs and had fierce internal debates on the gold standard In the early 20th century it partially not all factions supported progressive reforms and opposed imperialism with Woodrow Wilson winning the White House in 1912 and 1916 Since Franklin D Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 the Democratic Party has promoted a liberal platform that includes support for Social Security and unemployment insurance The New Deal attracted strong support for the party from recent European immigrants but diminished the party s pro business wing From late in Roosevelt s administration through the 1950s a minority in the party s Southern wing joined with conservative Republicans to slow and stop progressive domestic reforms Following the Great Society era of progressive legislation under Lyndon B Johnson who was often able to overcome the conservative coalition in the 1960s the core bases of the parties shifted with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic The party s labor union element has become smaller since the 1970s and as the American electorate shifted in a more conservative direction following Jimmy Carter s 1980 defeat the election of Bill Clinton marked a move for the party toward the Third Way moving the party s economic stance towards market based economic policy Barack Obama oversaw the party s passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 In the 21st century the party is strongest among African Americans LGBT people urban voters American Jews union workers college graduates women and the unmarried On social issues it advocates for abortion rights voting rights LGBT rights action on climate change and the legalization of marijuana On economic issues the party favors healthcare reform free trade paid sick leave and supporting unions In foreign policy the party supports liberal internationalism as well as tough stances against China and Russia HistoryPolitical parties derivation in the United States A dotted line denotes an unofficial connection Democratic Party officials often trace its origins to the Democratic Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson James Madison and other influential opponents of the conservative Federalists in 1792 That party died out before the modern Democratic Party was organized the Jeffersonian party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans Historians argue that the modern Democratic Party was first organized in the late 1820s with the election of war hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee making it the world s oldest active political party It was predominately built by Martin Van Buren who assembled a wide cadre of politicians in every state behind Jackson Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896 the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues Democrats have been more liberal on civil rights since 1948 although conservative factions within the Democratic Party that opposed them persisted in the South until the 1960s On foreign policy both parties have changed positions several times Background Andrew Jackson was the seventh president 1829 1837 and the first Democratic president The Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party The Democratic Republican Party favored republicanism a weak federal government states rights agrarian interests especially Southern planters and strict adherence to the Constitution The party opposed a national bank and Great Britain After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic Republicans which was prone to splinter along regional lines The era of one party rule in the United States known as the Era of Good Feelings lasted from 1816 until 1828 when Andrew Jackson became president Jackson and Martin Van Buren worked with allies in each state to form a new Democratic Party on a national basis In the 1830s the Whig Party coalesced into the main rival to the Democrats Before 1860 the Democratic Party supported expansive presidential power the interests of slave states agrarianism and expansionism while opposing a national bank and high tariffs 19th century Jacksonian Era Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States 1837 1841 and the second Democratic president The Democratic Republican Party split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe The faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren became the modern Democratic Party Historian Mary Beth Norton explains the transformation in 1828 Jacksonians believed the people s will had finally prevailed Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties political leaders and newspaper editors a popular movement had elected the president The Democrats became the nation s first well organized national party and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth century American politics James K Polk was the 11th president of the United States of America 1845 1849 He significantly extended the territory of the United States Behind the platforms issued by state and national parties stood a widely shared political outlook that characterized the Democrats 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 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 Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party The Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery In 1854 angry with the Kansas Nebraska Act anti slavery Democrats left the party and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party Martin van Buren also helped found the Free Soil Party to oppose the spread of slavery running as its candidate in the 1848 presidential election before returning to the Democratic Party and staying loyal to the Union U S Civil War Stephen A Douglas was a United States senator for Illinois The Democrats split over slavery with Northern and Southern tickets in the election of 1860 in which the Republican Party gained ascendancy The radical pro slavery Fire Eaters led walkouts at the two conventions when the delegates would not adopt a resolution supporting the extension of slavery into territories even if the voters of those territories did not want it These Southern Democrats nominated the pro slavery incumbent vice president John C Breckinridge of Kentucky for president and General Joseph Lane of Oregon for vice president The Northern Democrats nominated Senator Stephen A Douglas of Illinois for president and former Georgia Governor Herschel V Johnson for vice president This fracturing of the Democrats led to a Republican victory and Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States As the American Civil War broke out Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats The Confederate States of America deliberately avoided organized political parties Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans National Union Party in the election of 1864 which featured Andrew Johnson on the Union ticket to attract fellow Democrats Johnson replaced Lincoln in 1865 but he stayed independent of both parties Reconstruction and Redemption The Democrats benefited from white Southerners resentment of Reconstruction after the war and consequent hostility to the Republican Party After Redeemers ended Reconstruction in the 1870s and following the often extremely violent disenfranchisement of African Americans led by such white supremacist Democratic politicians as Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina in the 1880s and 1890s the South voting Democratic became known as the Solid South Although Republicans won all but two presidential elections the Democrats remained competitive The party was dominated by pro business Bourbon Democrats led by Samuel J Tilden and Grover Cleveland who represented mercantile banking and railroad interests opposed imperialism and overseas expansion fought for the gold standard opposed bimetallism and crusaded against corruption high taxes and tariffs Cleveland was elected to non consecutive presidential terms in 1884 and 1892 20th century Progressive Era Leaders of the Democratic Party during the first half of the 20th century on in 1913 William Jennings Bryan Josephus Daniels Woodrow Wilson Breckinridge Long William Phillips and Franklin D Roosevelt Agrarian Democrats demanding free silver drawing on Populist ideas overthrew the Bourbon Democrats in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency a nomination repeated by Democrats in 1900 and 1908 Bryan waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern moneyed interests but he lost to Republican William McKinley The Democrats took control of the House in 1910 and Woodrow Wilson won election as president in 1912 when the Republicans split and 1916 Wilson effectively led Congress to put to rest the issues of tariffs money and antitrust which had dominated politics for 40 years with new progressive laws He failed to secure Senate passage of the Versailles Treaty ending the war with Germany and joining the League of Nations The weakened party was deeply divided by issues such as the KKK and prohibition in the 1920s However it did organize new ethnic voters in Northern cities After World War I ended and continuing through the Great Depression the Democratic and Republican Parties both largely believed in American exceptionalism over European monarchies and state socialism that existed elsewhere in the world 1930s 1960s and the rise of the New Deal coalition Franklin D Roosevelt and Harry S Truman the 32nd and 33rd presidents of the United States 1933 1945 1945 1953 featured on a campaign poster for the 1944 presidential election note the rooster logo of the Democratic Party see Names and Symbols below The Great Depression in 1929 that began under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1930 until 1994 the Senate for 44 of 48 years from 1930 and won most presidential elections until 1968 Franklin D Roosevelt elected to the presidency in 1932 came forth with federal government programs called the New Deal New Deal liberalism meant the regulation of business especially finance and banking and the promotion of labor unions as well as federal spending to aid the unemployed help distressed farmers and undertake large scale public works projects It marked the start of the American welfare state The opponents who stressed opposition to unions support for business and low taxes started calling themselves conservatives Until the 1980s the Democratic Party was a coalition of two parties divided by the Mason Dixon line liberal Democrats in the North and culturally conservative voters in the South who though benefitting from many of the New Deal public works projects opposed increasing civil rights initiatives advocated by northeastern liberals The polarization grew stronger after Roosevelt died Southern Democrats formed a key part of the bipartisan conservative coalition in an alliance with most of the Midwestern Republicans The economically activist philosophy of Franklin D Roosevelt which has strongly influenced American liberalism shaped much of the party s economic agenda after 1932 From the 1930s to the mid 1960s the liberal New Deal coalition usually controlled the presidency while the conservative coalition usually controlled Congress 1960s 1980s and the collapse of the New Deal coalition Issues facing parties and the United States after World War II included the Cold War and the civil rights movement Republicans attracted conservatives and after the 1960s white Southerners from the Democratic coalition with their use of the Southern strategy and resistance to New Deal and Great Society liberalism Until the 1950s African Americans had traditionally supported the Republican Party because of its anti slavery civil rights policies Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 the Southern states became more reliably Republican in presidential politics while Northeastern states became more reliably Democratic Studies show that Southern whites which were a core constituency in the Democratic Party shifted to the Republican Party due to racial backlash and social conservatism John F Kennedy the 35th president 1961 1963 Lyndon B Johnson the 36th president 1963 1969 The election of President John F Kennedy from Massachusetts in 1960 partially reflected this shift In the campaign Kennedy attracted a new generation of younger voters In his agenda dubbed the New Frontier Kennedy introduced a host of social programs and public works projects along with enhanced support of the space program proposing a crewed spacecraft trip to the moon by the end of the decade He pushed for civil rights initiatives and proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but with his assassination in November 1963 he was not able to see its passage Kennedy s successor Lyndon B Johnson was able to persuade the largely conservative Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and with a more progressive Congress in 1965 passed much of the Great Society including Medicare and Medicaid which consisted of an array of social programs designed to help the poor sick and elderly Kennedy and Johnson s advocacy of civil rights further solidified black support for the Democrats but had the effect of alienating Southern whites who would eventually gravitate toward the Republican Party particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 Many conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party beginning with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the general leftward shift of the party The United States involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s was another divisive issue that further fractured the fault lines of the Democrats coalition After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 President Johnson committed a large contingency of combat troops to Vietnam but the escalation failed to drive the Viet Cong from South Vietnam resulting in an increasing quagmire which by 1968 had become the subject of widespread anti war protests in the United States and elsewhere With increasing casualties and nightly news reports bringing home troubling images from Vietnam the costly military engagement became increasingly unpopular alienating many of the kinds of young voters that the Democrats had attracted in the early 1960s The protests that year along with assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Democratic presidential candidate Senator Robert F Kennedy younger brother of John F Kennedy climaxed in turbulence at the hotly contested Democratic National Convention that summer in Chicago which amongst the ensuing turmoil inside and outside of the convention hall nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey in a series of events that proved to mark a significant turning point in the decline of the Democratic Party s broad coalition Jimmy Carter the 39th president 1977 1981 Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon was able to capitalize on the confusion of the Democrats that year and won the 1968 election to become the 37th president He won re election in a landslide in 1972 against Democratic nominee George McGovern who like Robert F Kennedy reached out to the younger anti war and counterculture voters but unlike Kennedy was not able to appeal to the party s more traditional white working class constituencies During Nixon s second term his presidency was rocked by the Watergate scandal which forced him to resign in 1974 He was succeeded by vice president Gerald Ford who served a brief tenure Watergate offered the Democrats an opportunity to recoup and their nominee Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election With the initial support of evangelical Christian voters in the South Carter was temporarily able to reunite the disparate factions within the party but inflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979 1980 took their toll resulting in a landslide victory for Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan in 1980 which shifted the political landscape in favor of the Republicans for years to come The influx of conservative Democrats into the Republican Party is often cited as a reason for the Republican Party s shift further to the right during the late 20th century as well as the shift of its base from the Northeast and Midwest to the South 1990s and Third Way centrism Bill Clinton the 42nd president 1993 2001 With the ascendancy of the Republicans under Ronald Reagan the Democrats searched for ways to respond yet were unable to succeed by running traditional candidates such as former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis who lost to Reagan and George H W Bush in the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections respectively Many Democrats attached their hopes to the future star of Gary Hart who had challenged Mondale in the 1984 primaries running on a theme of New Ideas and in the subsequent 1988 primaries became the de facto front runner and virtual shoo in for the Democratic presidential nomination before a sex scandal ended his campaign The party nevertheless began to seek out a younger generation of leaders who like Hart had been inspired by the pragmatic idealism of John F Kennedy Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was one such figure who was elected president in 1992 as the Democratic nominee The Democratic Leadership Council was a campaign organization connected to Clinton that advocated a realignment and triangulation under the re branded New Democrat label The party adopted a synthesis of neoliberal economic policies with cultural liberalism with the voter base after Reagan having shifted considerably to the right In an effort to appeal both to liberals and to fiscal conservatives Democrats began to advocate for a balanced budget and market economy tempered by government intervention mixed economy along with a continued emphasis on social justice and affirmative action The economic policy adopted by the Democratic Party including the former Clinton administration has been referred to as Third Way The Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 elections to the Republicans however in 1996 Clinton was re elected becoming the first Democratic president since Franklin D Roosevelt to win a second full term Clinton s vice president Al Gore ran to succeed him as president and won the popular vote but after a controversial election dispute over a Florida recount settled by the U S Supreme Court which ruled 5 4 in favor of Bush he lost the 2000 election to Republican opponent George W Bush in the Electoral College 21st century 2000s Barack Obama the 44th president 2009 2017 In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as the growing concern over global warming some of the party s key issues in the early 21st century have included combating terrorism while preserving human rights expanding access to health care labor rights and environmental protection Democrats regained majority control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections Barack Obama won the Democratic Party s nomination and was elected as the first African American president in 2008 Under the Obama presidency the party moved forward reforms including an economic stimulus package the Dodd Frank financial reform act and the Affordable Care Act 2010s In the 2010 midterm elections the Democratic Party lost control of the House as well as its majorities in several state legislatures and governorships The 2010 elections also marked the end of the Democratic Party s electoral dominance in the Southern United States In the 2012 elections President Obama was re elected but the party remained in the minority in the House of Representatives and lost control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections After the 2016 election of Donald Trump who lost the popular vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party transitioned into the role of an opposition party and held neither the presidency nor Congress for two years However the party won back the House in the 2018 midterm elections under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi Democrats were extremely critical of President Trump particularly his policies on immigration healthcare and abortion as well as his response to the COVID 19 pandemic In December 2019 Democrats in the House of Representatives impeached Trump although he was acquitted in the Republican controlled Senate 2020s Joe Biden the 46th president 2021 2025 In November 2020 Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump to win the 2020 presidential election He began his term with extremely narrow Democratic majorities in the U S House and Senate During the Biden presidency the party has been characterized as adopting an increasingly progressive economic agenda In 2022 Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson the first Black woman on the Supreme Court However she was replacing liberal justice Stephen Breyer so she did not alter the court s 6 3 split between conservatives the majority and liberals After Dobbs v Jackson decided June 24 2022 which led to abortion bans in much of the country the Democratic Party rallied behind abortion rights In the 2022 midterm elections Democrats dramatically outperformed historical trends and a widely anticipated red wave did not materialize The party only narrowly lost its majority in the U S House and expanded its majority in the U S Senate along with several gains at the state level In July 2024 after a series of age and health concerns Biden became the first incumbent president since Lyndon B Johnson in 1968 to withdraw from running for reelection the first since the 19th century to withdraw after serving only one term and the only one to ever withdraw after already winning the primaries Vice President Kamala Harris who became Biden s replacement on the ballot after his withdrawal from the race became the first black woman to be nominated by a major party but she was defeated in the election by Trump Harris lost the electoral college 312 226 including all seven of the anticipated swing states as well as the popular vote becoming the first Democratic candidate to do so since John Kerry in 2004 amid what was a global anti incumbent backlash Current status As of 2025 Democrats hold 23 state governorships 17 state legislatures 15 state government trifectas and the mayorships in the majority of the country s major cities Three of the nine current U S Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democratic presidents By registered members the Democratic Party is the largest party in the U S and the fourth largest in the world All totaled 16 Democrats have served as president of the United States Name and symbolsIt has been suggested that mascots be split out into another article Discuss August 2024 A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion by Thomas Nast Harper s Weekly January 19 1870The donkey party logo remains a well known symbol for the Democratic Party despite not being the official logo of the party The Democratic Republican Party splintered in 1824 into the short lived National Republican Party and the Jacksonian movement which in 1828 became the Democratic Party Under the Jacksonian era the term The Democracy was in use by the party but the name Democratic Party was eventually settled upon and became the official name in 1844 Members of the party are called Democrats or Dems The most common mascot symbol for the party has been the donkey or jackass Andrew Jackson s enemies twisted his name to jackass as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal However the Democrats liked the common man implications and picked it up too therefore the image persisted and evolved Its most lasting impression came from the cartoons of Thomas Nast from 1870 in Harper s Weekly Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats and the elephant to represent the Republicans In many states the logo of the Democratic Party was a rooster for instance in Alabama Logo of the Alabama Democratic Party 1904 1966 left and 1966 1996 right In the early 20th century the traditional symbol of the Democratic Party in Indiana Kentucky Oklahoma and Ohio was the rooster as opposed to the Republican eagle The rooster was also adopted as an official symbol of the national Democratic Party In 1904 the Alabama Democratic Party chose as the logo to put on its ballots a rooster with the motto White supremacy For the right The words White supremacy were replaced with Democrats in 1966 In 1996 the Alabama Democratic Party dropped the rooster citing racist and white supremacist connotations linked with the symbol The rooster symbol still appears on Oklahoma Kentucky Indiana and West Virginia ballots In New York the Democratic ballot symbol is a five pointed star Although both major political parties and many minor ones use the traditional American colors of red white and blue in their marketing and representations since election night 2000 blue has become the identifying color for the Democratic Party while red has become the identifying color for the Republican Party That night for the first time all major broadcast television networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map blue states for Al Gore Democratic nominee and red states for George W Bush Republican nominee Since then the color blue has been widely used by the media to represent the party This is contrary to common practice outside of the United States where blue is the traditional color of the right and red the color of the left Jefferson Jackson Day is the annual fundraising event dinner held by Democratic Party organizations across the United States It is named after Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson whom the party regards as its distinguished early leaders The song Happy Days Are Here Again is the unofficial song of the Democratic Party It was used prominently when Franklin D Roosevelt was nominated for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention and remains a sentimental favorite for Democrats For example Paul Shaffer played the theme on the Late Show with David Letterman after the Democrats won Congress in 2006 Don t Stop by Fleetwood Mac was adopted by Bill Clinton s presidential campaign in 1992 and has endured as a popular Democratic song The emotionally similar song Beautiful Day by the band U2 has also become a favorite theme song for Democratic candidates John Kerry used the song during his 2004 presidential campaign and several Democratic congressional candidates used it as a celebratory tune in 2006 As a traditional anthem for its presidential nominating convention Aaron Copland s Fanfare for the Common Man is traditionally performed at the beginning of the Democratic National Convention StructureDemocratic National Headquarters 2024 National committee The Democratic National Committee DNC is responsible for promoting Democratic campaign activities While the DNC is responsible for overseeing the process of writing the Democratic Platform the DNC is more focused on campaign and organizational strategy than public policy In presidential elections it supervises the Democratic National Convention The national convention is subject to the charter of the party and the ultimate authority within the Democratic Party when it is in session with the DNC running the party s organization at other times Since 2021 the DNC has been chaired by Jaime Harrison State parties Each state also has a state committee made up of elected committee members as well as ex officio committee members usually elected officials and representatives of major constituencies which in turn elects a chair County town city and ward committees generally are composed of individuals elected at the local level State and local committees often coordinate campaign activities within their jurisdiction oversee local conventions and in some cases primaries or caucuses and may have a role in nominating candidates for elected office under state law Rarely do they have much direct funding but in 2005 DNC Chairman Dean began a program called the 50 State Strategy of using DNC national funds to assist all state parties and pay for full time professional staffers In addition state level party committees operate in the territories of American Samoa Guam and Virgin Islands the commonwealths of Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia with all but Puerto Rico being active in nominating candidates for both presidential and territorial contests while Puerto Rico s Democratic Party is organized only to nominate presidential candidates The Democrats Abroad committee is organized by American voters who reside outside of U S territory to nominate presidential candidates All such party committees are accorded recognition as state parties and are allowed to elect both members to the National Committee as well as delegates to the National Convention Major party committees and groups Then Senator Obama speaking to College Democrats of America in 2007 The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee DCCC assists party candidates in House races and is chaired by Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington Similarly the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee DSCC chaired by Senator Gary Peters of Michigan raises funds for Senate races The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee DLCC chaired by Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Andrea Stewart Cousins is a smaller organization that focuses on state legislative races The Democratic Governors Association DGA is an organization supporting the candidacies of Democratic gubernatorial nominees and incumbents Likewise the mayors of the largest cities and urban centers convene as the National Conference of Democratic Mayors The DNC sponsors the College Democrats of America CDA a student outreach organization with the goal of training and engaging a new generation of Democratic activists Democrats Abroad is the organization for Americans living outside the United States They work to advance the party s goals and encourage Americans living abroad to support the Democrats The Young Democrats of America YDA and the High School Democrats of America HSDA are young adult and youth led organizations respectively that attempt to draw in and mobilize young people for Democratic candidates but operates outside of the DNC Political positionsThis graph shows the real median US household income by race 1967 to 2011 in 2011 dollars The 21st century Democratic Party differs from other center left parties around the world in its ideological orientation in part due to its heterogenous demographic composition In particular the Democratic Party s ideology derives from being supported by both racial minorities particularly African Americans as well as White voters with high educational attainment This makes the Democratic Party different because it is a big tent party neither a classically liberal nor a social democratic party ideologically Its voting demographics are heavily educationally and racially polarized but not income polarized The Democratic Party is weakest among White voters without college degrees in the 21st century Higher educational attainment is strongly correlated with higher income and wealth and also strongly correlated with increased ideological support for the Democratic Party s positions among White voters This derives in part from unique regional characteristics of the United States particularly the Southern United States Racial polarization is extremely high in the Southern United States with Black Southerners almost entirely voting for the Democratic Party and White Southerners almost entirely voting for the Republican Party Also White Southerners with college degrees are strongly Republican unlike in most of the rest of the country African Americans continue to have the lowest incomes of any racial group in the United States The Democratic party s social positions derive from those of the New Left that is cultural liberalism These include feminism LGBT rights drug policy reforms and environmentalism The party s platform favors a generous welfare state and a greater measure of social and economic equality On social issues it advocates for the continued legality of abortion the legalization of marijuana and LGBT rights Economic issues The social safety net and strong labor unions have been at the heart of Democratic economic policy since the New Deal in the 1930s The Democratic Party s economic policy positions as measured by votes in Congress tend to align with those of the middle class Democrats support a progressive tax system higher minimum wages equal opportunity employment Social Security universal health care public education and subsidized housing They also support infrastructure development and clean energy investments to achieve economic development and job creation Since the 1990s the party has at times supported centrist economic reforms that cut the size of government and reduced market regulations The party has generally rejected both laissez faire economics and market socialism instead favoring Keynesian economics within a capitalist market based system Fiscal policy Democrats support a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce economic inequality by making sure that the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes Democrats and Republicans traditionally take differing stances on eradicating poverty Brady said Our poverty level is the direct consequence of our weak social policies which are a direct consequence of weak political actors They oppose the cutting of social services such as Social Security Medicare and Medicaid believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice Democrats believe the benefits of social services in monetary and non monetary terms are a more productive labor force and cultured population and believe that the benefits of this are greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower taxes especially on top earners or cuts to social services Furthermore Democrats see social services as essential toward providing positive freedom freedom derived from economic opportunity The Democratic led House of Representatives reinstated the PAYGO pay as you go budget rule at the start of the 110th Congress Minimum wage The Democratic Party favors raising the minimum wage The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was an early component of the Democrats agenda during the 110th Congress In 2006 the Democrats supported six state ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and all six initiatives passed In 2017 Senate Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act which would raise the minimum wage to 15 an hour by 2024 In 2021 Democratic president Joe Biden proposed increasing the minimum wage to 15 by 2025 In many states controlled by Democrats the state minimum wage has been increased to a rate above the federal minimum wage Health care President Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in 2010 Democrats call for affordable and quality health care and favor moving toward universal health care in a variety of forms to address rising healthcare costs Progressive Democrats politicians favor a single payer program or Medicare for All while liberals prefer creating a public health insurance option The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23 2010 has been one of the most significant pushes for universal health care As of December 2019 more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act Education Democrats favor improving public education by raising school standards and reforming the Head Start program They also support universal preschool expanding access to primary education including through charter schools and are generally opposed to school voucher programs They call for addressing student loan debt and reforms to reduce college tuition Other proposals have included tuition free public universities and reform of standardized testing Democrats have the long term aim of having publicly funded college education with low tuition fees like in much of Europe and Canada which would be available to every eligible American student Alternatively they encourage expanding access to post secondary education by increasing state funding for student financial aid such as Pell Grants and college tuition tax deductions Environment Democrats and Republicans have diverged on the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change with Democrats assessment rising significantly in the mid 2010s The sharp divide over the existence of and responsibility for global warming and climate change falls largely along political lines Overall 60 of those surveyed said oil and gas companies were completely or mostly responsible for climate change Opinion about human causation of climate change increased substantially with education among Democrats but not among Republicans Conversely opinions favoring becoming carbon neutral declined substantially with age among Republicans but not among Democrats A broad range of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been proposed Democrats support for such policies consistently exceeds that of Republicans Acceptance of wind and solar facilities in one s community is stronger among Democrats blue while acceptance of nuclear power plants is stronger among Republicans red Democrats believe that the government should protect the environment and have a history of environmentalism In more recent years this stance has emphasized renewable energy generation as the basis for an improved economy greater national security and general environmental benefits The Democratic Party is substantially more likely than the Republican Party to support environmental regulation and policies that are supportive of renewable energy The Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation lands and encourages open space and rail travel to relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air quality and the economy as it believe s that communities environmental interests and the government should work together to protect resources while ensuring the vitality of local economies Once Americans were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment They now know this is a false choice The foremost environmental concern of the Democratic Party is climate change Democrats most notably former Vice President Al Gore have pressed for stern regulation of greenhouse gases On October 15 2007 Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build greater knowledge about man made climate change and laying the foundations for the measures needed to counteract it Renewable energy and fossil fuels Democrats have supported increased domestic renewable energy development including wind and solar power farms in an effort to reduce carbon pollution The party s platform calls for an all of the above energy policy including clean energy natural gas and domestic oil with the desire of becoming energy independent The party has supported higher taxes on oil companies and increased regulations on coal power plants favoring a policy of reducing long term reliance on fossil fuels Additionally the party supports stricter fuel emissions standards to prevent air pollution During his presidency Joe Biden enacted the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which is the largest allocation of funds for addressing climate change in the history of the United States Trade Like the Republican Party the Democratic Party has taken widely varying views on international trade throughout its history The Democratic Party has usually been more supportive of free trade than the Republican Party The Democrats dominated the Second Party System and set low tariffs designed to pay for the government but not protect industry Their opponents the Whigs wanted high protective tariffs but usually were outvoted in Congress Tariffs soon became a major political issue as the Whigs 1832 1852 and after 1854 the Republicans wanted to protect their mostly northern industries and constituents by voting for higher tariffs and the Southern Democrats which had very little industry but imported many goods voted for lower tariffs After the Second Party System ended in 1854 the Democrats lost control and the new Republican Party had its opportunity to raise rates During the Third Party System Democratic president Grover Cleveland made low tariffs the centerpiece of Democratic Party policies arguing that high tariffs were an unnecessary and unfair tax on consumers The South and West generally supported low tariffs while the industrial North high tariffs During the Fourth Party System Democratic president Woodrow Wilson made a drastic lowering of tariff rates a major priority for his presidency The 1913 Underwood Tariff cut rates and the new revenues generated by the federal income tax made tariffs much less important in terms of economic impact and political rhetoric During the Fifth Party System the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 was enacted during FDR s administration marking a sharp departure from the era of protectionism in the United States American duties on foreign products declined from an average of 46 in 1934 to 12 by 1962 After World War II the U S promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT established in 1947 during the Truman administration to minimize tariffs liberalize trade among all capitalist countries In the 1990s the Clinton administration and a number of prominent Democrats pushed through a number of agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA Barack Obama signed several free trade agreements during his presidency Joe Biden did not sign any free trade agreements during his presidency Social issues Shirley Chisholm was the first major party African American candidate to run nationwide primary campaigns The modern Democratic Party emphasizes social equality and equal opportunity Democrats support voting rights and minority rights including LGBT rights Democratic president Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed racial segregation Carmines and Stimson wrote the Democratic Party appropriated racial liberalism and assumed federal responsibility for ending racial discrimination Ideological social elements in the party include cultural liberalism civil libertarianism and feminism Some Democratic social policies are immigration reform electoral reform and women s reproductive rights Equal opportunity The Democratic Party is a staunch supporter of equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of sex age race ethnicity sexual orientation gender identity religion creed or national origin The Democratic Party has broad appeal across most socioeconomic and ethnic demographics as seen in recent exit polls Democrats also strongly support the Americans with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against people based on physical or mental disability As such the Democrats pushed as well the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 a disability rights expansion that became law Most Democrats support affirmative action to further equal opportunity However in 2020 57 voters in California voted to keep their state constitution s ban on affirmative action despite Biden winning 63 of the vote in California in the same election Voting rights The party is very supportive of improving voting rights as well as election accuracy and accessibility They support extensions of voting time including making election day a holiday They support reforming the electoral system to eliminate gerrymandering abolishing the electoral college as well as passing comprehensive campaign finance reform Abortion and reproductive rights The Democratic position on abortion has changed significantly over time During the late 1960s and early 1970s Republicans generally favored legalized abortion more than Democrats although significant heterogeneity could be found within both parties During this time opposition to abortion tended to be concentrated within the political left in the United States Liberal Protestants and Catholics many of whom were Democratic voters opposed abortion while most conservative Protestants supported legal access to abortion services clarification needed In its national platforms from 1992 to 2004 the Democratic Party has called for abortion to be safe legal and rare namely keeping it legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental interference in abortion decisions and reducing the number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of reproduction and contraception and incentives for adoption When Congress voted on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 congressional Democrats were split with a minority including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid supporting the ban and the majority of Democrats opposing the legislation According to the 2020 Democratic Party platform Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high quality reproductive health care services including safe and legal abortion Immigration Apprehensions at the southwest border since 2000 Like the Republican Party the Democratic Party has taken widely varying views on immigration throughout its history Since the 1990s the Democratic Party has been more supportive overall of immigration than the Republican Party Many Democratic politicians have called for systematic reform of the immigration system such that residents that have come into the United States illegally have a pathway to legal citizenship President Obama remarked in November 2013 that he felt it was long past time to fix our broken immigration system particularly to allow incredibly bright young people that came over as students to become full citizens In 2013 Democrats in the Senate passed S 744 which would reform immigration policy to allow citizenship for illegal immigrants in the United States The law failed to pass in the House and was never re introduced after the 113th Congress As of 2024 no major immigration reform legislation has been enacted into law in the 21st century mainly due to opposition by the Republican Party Opposition to immigration has increased in the 2020s with a majority of Democrats supporting increasing border security LGBT rights The Democratic position on LGBT rights has changed significantly over time Before the 2000s like the Republicans the Democratic Party often took positions hostile to LGBT rights As of the 2020s both voters and elected representatives within the Democratic Party are overwhelmingly supportive of LGBT rights Support for same sex marriage has steadily increased among the general public including voters in both major parties since the start of the 21st century An April 2009 ABC News Washington Post public opinion poll put support among Democrats at 62 A 2006 Pew Research Center poll of Democrats found that 55 supported gays adopting children with 40 opposed while 70 support gays in the military with only 23 opposed Gallup polling from May 2009 stated that 82 of Democrats support open enlistment A 2023 Gallup public opinion poll found 84 of Democrats support same sex marriage compared to 71 support by the general public and 49 support by Republicans The 2004 Democratic National Platform stated that marriage should be defined at the state level and it repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment John Kerry the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 did not support same sex marriage in his campaign While not stating support of same sex marriage the 2008 platform called for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act which banned federal recognition of same sex marriage and removed the need for interstate recognition supported antidiscrimination laws and the extension of hate crime laws to LGBT people and opposed don t ask don t tell The 2012 platform included support for same sex marriage and for the repeal of DOMA On May 9 2012 Barack Obama became the first sitting president to say he supports same sex marriage Previously he had opposed restrictions on same sex marriage such as the Defense of Marriage Act which he promised to repeal California s Prop 8 and a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage which he opposed saying that decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been but also stated that he personally believed marriage to be between a man and a woman and that he favored civil unions that would give same sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples Earlier when running for the Illinois Senate in 1996 he said I favor legalizing same sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter along with former Democratic presidential nominees Al Gore and Michael Dukakis support same sex marriage President Joe Biden has supported same sex marriage since 2012 when he became the highest ranking government official to support it In 2022 Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act the law repealed the Defense of Marriage Act which Biden had voted for during his Senate tenure Status of Puerto Rico and D C The 2016 Democratic Party platform declares regarding the status of Puerto Rico We are committed to addressing the extraordinary challenges faced by our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico Many stem from the fundamental question of Puerto Rico s political status Democrats believe that the people of Puerto Rico should determine their ultimate political status from permanent options that do not conflict with the Constitution laws and policies of the United States Democrats are committed to promoting economic opportunity and good paying jobs for the hardworking people of Puerto Rico We also believe that Puerto Ricans must be treated equally by Medicare Medicaid and other programs that benefit families Puerto Ricans should be able to vote for the people who make their laws just as they should be treated equally All American citizens no matter where they reside should have the right to vote for the president of the United States Finally we believe that federal officials must respect Puerto Rico s local self government as laws are implemented and Puerto Rico s budget and debt are restructured so that it can get on a path towards stability and prosperity Also it declares that regarding the status of the District of Columbia Restoring our democracy also means finally passing statehood for the District of Columbia so that the American citizens who reside in the nation s capital have full and equal congressional rights as well as the right to have the laws and budget of their local government respected without Congressional interference Legal issues Gun control U S opinion on gun control issues is deeply divided along political lines as shown in this 2021 survey With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide the Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures most notably the Gun Control Act of 1968 the Brady Bill of 1993 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 1994 In its national platform for 2008 the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plan calling for renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban In 2022 Democratic president Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act which among other things expanded background checks and provided incentives for states to pass red flag laws According to a 2023 Pew Research Center poll 20 of Democrats owned firearms compared to 32 of the general public and 45 of Republicans Death penalty The Democratic Party s 2020 platform states its opposition to the death penalty Although most Democrats in Congress have never seriously moved to overturn the rarely used federal death penalty both Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich have introduced such bills with little success Democrats have led efforts to overturn state death penalty laws and prevent the reinstatement of the death penalty in those states which prohibit it including Massachusetts New York and Delaware During the Clinton administration Democrats led the expansion of the federal death penalty These efforts resulted in the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 signed into law by President Clinton which heavily limited appeals in death penalty cases In 1972 the Democratic Party platform called for the abolition of capital punishment During his Illinois Senate career former President Barack Obama successfully introduced legislation intended to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions in capital cases requiring videotaping of confessions When campaigning for the presidency Obama stated that he supports the limited use of the death penalty including for people who have been convicted of raping a minor under the age of 12 having opposed the Supreme Court s ruling in Kennedy v Louisiana that the death penalty was unconstitutional in which the victim of a crime was not killed Obama has stated that he thinks the death penalty does little to deter crime and that it is used too frequently and too inconsistently In June 2016 the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee unanimously adopted an amendment to abolish the death penalty The 2024 platform is the first since the 2004 platform that doesn t mention the death penalty and the first since 2016 not to call for abolition However on December 23 2024 President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole Torture Many Democrats are opposed to the use of torture against individuals apprehended and held prisoner by the United States military and hold that categorizing such prisoners as unlawful combatants does not release the United States from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions Democrats contend that torture is inhumane damages the United States moral standing in the world and produces questionable results Democrats are largely against waterboarding Torture became a divisive issue in the party after Barack Obama was elected president Privacy The Democratic Party believes that individuals should have a right to privacy For example many Democrats have opposed the NSA warrantless surveillance of American citizens Some Democratic officeholders have championed consumer protection laws that limit the sharing of consumer data between corporations Democrats have opposed sodomy laws since the 1972 platform which stated that Americans should be free to make their own choice of life styles and private habits without being subject to discrimination or prosecution and believe that government should not regulate consensual noncommercial sexual conduct among adults as a matter of personal privacy Foreign policy issues The foreign policy of the voters of the two major parties has largely overlapped since the 1990s A Gallup poll in early 2013 showed broad agreement on the top issues albeit with some divergence regarding human rights and international cooperation through agencies such as the United Nations In June 2014 the Quinnipiac Poll asked Americans which foreign policy they preferred A The United States is doing too much in other countries around the world and it is time to do less around the world and focus more on our own problems here at home B The United States must continue to push forward to promote democracy and freedom in other countries worldwide because these efforts make our own country more secure Democrats chose A over B by 65 to 32 Republicans chose A over B by 56 to 39 and independents chose A over B by 67 to 29 Iran sanctions The Democratic Party has been critical of Iran s nuclear weapon program and supported economic sanctions against the Iranian government In 2013 the Democratic led administration worked to reach a diplomatic agreement with the government of Iran to halt the Iranian nuclear weapon program in exchange for international economic sanction relief As of 2014 update negotiations had been successful and the party called for more cooperation with Iran in the future In 2015 the Obama administration agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which provides sanction relief in exchange for international oversight of the Iranian nuclear program In February 2019 the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution calling on the United States to re enter the JCPOA which President Trump withdrew from in 2018 Invasion of Afghanistan Democrats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate near unanimously voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States in Afghanistan in 2001 supporting the NATO coalition invasion of the nation Most elected Democrats continued to support the Afghanistan conflict during George W Bush s presidency During the 2008 Presidential Election then candidate Barack Obama called for a surge of troops into Afghanistan After winning the presidency Obama followed through sending additional troops to Afghanistan Troop levels were 94 000 in December 2011 and kept falling with a target of 68 000 by fall 2012 Support for the war among the American people diminished over time Many Democrats changed their opinion over the course of the war coming to oppose continuation of the conflict In July 2008 Gallup found that 41 of Democrats called the invasion a mistake while a 55 majority disagreed A CNN survey in August 2009 stated that a majority of Democrats opposed the war CNN polling director Keating Holland said Nearly two thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan Three quarters of Democrats oppose the war During the 2020 Presidential Election then candidate Joe Biden promised to end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East Biden went on to win the election and in April 2021 he announced he would withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year The last troops left in August bringing America s 20 year long military campaign in the country to a close According to a 2023 AP NORC poll a majority of Democrats believed that the War in Afghanistan was not worth it Israel Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with President Obama in 2013 Democrats have historically been a stronger supporter of Israel than Republicans During the 1940s the party advocated for the cause of an independent Jewish state over the objections of many conservatives in the Old Right who strongly opposed it In 1948 Democratic President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize an independent state of Israel The 2020 Democratic Party platform acknowledges a commitment to Israel s security its qualitative military edge its right to defend itself and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad and that we oppose any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel including at the United Nations or through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement During the 2023 Israel Hamas War the party requested a large scale military aid package to Israel Biden also announced military support for Israel condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism and ordered the US military to build a port to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza However parts of the Democratic base also became more skeptical of the Israel government The number of Democrats and Americans in general who oppose sending arms to Israel has grown month by month as Israel s war on Gaza continues Experts say support for Israel could have a negative impact on Democrats in several key states including Michigan and Pennsylvania in the 2024 presidential election Late in 2024 twenty Democrats requested support for US legislation that would ban the arms trade with countries that hinder humanitarian aid Europe Russia and Ukraine The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was politically and economically opposed by the Biden Administration who promptly began an increased arming of Ukraine In October 2023 the Biden administration requested an additional 61 4 billion in aid for Ukraine for the year ahead but delays in the passage of further aid by the Republican controlled House of Representatives inhibited progress with the additional 61 billion in aid to Ukraine added in April 2024 DemographicsTop to bottom 2020 presidential election by county Majority Black Counties in the U S as of the 2020 United States Census In the 2024 presidential election the party performed best among voters who were upper income lived in urban areas college graduates identified as Atheist Agnostic or Jewish African Americans LGBT and unmarried In particular Kamala Harris two strongest demographic groups in the 2024 presidential election were African Americans 86 13 and LGBT voters 86 12 Support for the civil rights movement in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson helped increase the Democrats support within the African American community African Americans have consistently voted between 85 and 95 Democratic since the 1960s making African Americans one of the largest of the party s constituencies According to the Pew Research Center 78 4 of Democrats in the 116th United States Congress were Christian However the vast majority of white evangelical and Latter day Saint Christians favor the Republican Party The party also receives strong support from non religious voters Younger Americans have tended to vote mainly for Democratic candidates in recent years particularly those under the age of 30 Since 1980 a gender gap has seen stronger support for the Democratic Party among women than among men Unmarried and divorced women are more likely to vote for Democrats Although women supported Obama over Mitt Romney by a margin of 55 44 in 2012 Romney prevailed amongst married women 53 46 Obama won unmarried women 67 31 According to a December 2019 study White women are the only group of female voters who support Republican Party candidates for president They have done so by a majority in all but 2 of the last 18 elections Race Top to bottom White vote in the 2020 presidential election by state and county Referring to the map of the White vote Kamala Harris in 2024 won every state where Joe Biden won the White vote in 2020 Republican Donald Trump won every state where Joe Biden lost the White vote except for Virginia Virginia is both 20 African American and its White voters are much less Republican than those of other Southern states because Northern Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area is a Democratic stronghold New Mexico is half Hispanic 49 3 as the most heavily Hispanic state in the country Of the 19 states and the District of Columbia won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election all except New Mexico had above average educational attainment New Mexico also had the lowest population density and the highest poverty rate of any state carried by Harris Region Proportion of Americans who are Hispanic or Latino in each U S state DC and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States Census Geographically the party is strongest in the Northeastern United States parts of the Great Lakes region and Southwestern United States and the West Coast The party is also very strong in major cities regardless of region The Democratic Party gradually lost its power in the Southern United States since 1964 Although Richard Nixon carried 49 states in 1972 including every Southern state the Republican Party remained quite weak at the local and state levels across the entire South for decades Republicans first won a majority of U S House seats in the South in the 1994 Republican Revolution and only began to dominate the South after the 2010 elections Since the 2010s White Southerners are the Republican Party s strongest racial demographic in some Deep South states voting nearly as Republican as African Americans vote Democratic This is partially attributable to religiosity with White evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt which covers most of the South being the Republican Party s strongest religious demographic The Democratic Party is particularly strong in the West Coast and Northeastern United States In particular the Democratic Party receives its strongest support from White voters in these two regions This is attributable to the two regions having the highest educational attainment in the country and being part of the Unchurched Belt with the lowest rates of religiosity in the country The Democratic Party s support in the Midwest and Southwest are more mixed with varying levels of support from White voters in both regions In the Midwest the Democratic Party receives varying levels of support with some states safely Democratic some swing states and some safely Republican In the Southwest the Democratic Party also relies on Hispanic voters The Democratic Party is particularly weak in the Great Plains and some Mountain states In particular the states of Idaho Utah Wyoming North Dakota South Dakota Nebraska Kansas and Oklahoma have not voted for the Democratic Party since the 1964 presidential election Montana has not voted for the Democratic Party since the 1992 presidential election White voters have considerable regional variations In 2024 presidential election Kamala Harris lost Southern White voters 32 67 and Midwestern White voters 40 59 Harris tied among White voters in the Northeastern United States 49 49 and won White voters in the Western United States 52 45 Harris lost White voters in the country as a whole to Trump 42 57 Population density The Democratic Party s support is strongly positively correlated with increased population density consistent with the urban rural divide observed globally Notably in the 2024 presidential election the swings against Kamala Harris were inversely correlated to population density shrinking the urban rural divide slightly Harris still received higher support as population density increased But relative to 2020 urban areas had the largest swings against Harris suburban areas had lesser swings against Harris and rural areas had the smallest swings against Harris Specifically Harris won voters in urban areas 60 38 narrowly lost voters in suburban areas 47 51 and lost voters in rural areas 34 64 The urban rural divide holds after controlling for race Harris won White voters in urban areas 53 45 lost them in suburban areas 41 57 and lost them in rural areas 31 68 Harris won Hispanic voters in urban areas 57 39 and suburban areas 51 48 and lost them in rural areas 33 66 Harris won African American voters in urban areas 89 10 suburban areas 86 12 and rural areas 71 27 The only state of the ten least densely populated that Harris won was New Mexico which is half Hispanic 49 3 Income and wealth Higher educational attainment in the US corresponds with median household wealth The victory of Republican Donald Trump in 2016 brought about a realignment in which many voters without college degrees also referred to as working class voters by many sources voted Republican Until 2016 white voters with college degrees were a Republican leaning group Until 2016 lower income was strongly correlated to voting for the Democratic Party among the general electorate However in all three of Trump s elections in 2016 2020 and 2024 the previous correlation between lower incomes and voting for the Democratic Party was largely eliminated For White voters instead higher educational attainment was strongly correlated with higher support for the Democratic Party In the 2024 presidential election Democratic nominee Kamala Harris did better among higher income voters than lower income voters for the first time ever in modern American political history Two causes of this are higher educational attainment being strongly correlated to higher income and the 2021 2023 inflation surge because lower income voters lose purchasing power while higher income voters gain from asset prices increasing due to inflation including stocks and real estate Among White voters in 2024 income was negatively correlated with support for Kamala Harris Specifically Harris lost White voters making less than 30 000 34 63 those making between 30 000 to 49 999 37 62 and those making 50 000 to 99 999 42 56 Harris only narrowly lost White voters making 100 000 to 199 999 49 50 and those making more than 200 000 48 51 Among the electorate as a whole Harris lost those making less than 50 000 48 50 those making between 50 000 and 99 999 46 52 and won those making over 100 000 51 47 According to a 2022 Gallup poll roughly equal proportions of Democrats 64 35 and Republicans 66 34 had money invested in the stock market Education Top and bottom College White vote and Non college White vote in the 2020 presidential election by state In the 2020 presidential election college educated White voters in all 50 states voted more Democratic than non college White voters as displayed in the two maps After controlling for education there still remain huge variations by state and region Southern White voters with college degrees remain strongly Republican with Harris losing them 41 57 in the 2024 presidential election Harris won White voters with college degrees in the Midwestern United States 50 48 the Northeastern United States 61 38 and in the Western United States 67 30 Harris won White voters with college degrees as a whole 53 45 Harris lost White voters without college degrees 24 75 in the Southern United States 32 67 in the Midwestern United States 37 61 in the Northeastern United States and 42 56 in the Western United States Harris lost White voters without college degrees as a whole 32 66 In the 2024 presidential election among White voters educational attainment was strongly positively correlated with support for Kamala Harris In particular Harris lost White voters with high school or less 25 73 an Associate degree 31 67 and some college 38 61 Harris tied with Trump among White voters with a Bachelor s degree 49 49 and won White voters with a graduate degree 58 40 Harris did improve compared to Biden with White women with college degrees 58 41 vs 54 45 Harris lost White men with college degrees 48 50 by the same as the popular vote Harris lost White women without college degrees 35 63 and White men without college degrees 29 69 According to a Gallup poll in November 2024 unionization rates were positively correlated to increased educational attainment and higher income In particular 15 of those with graduate degrees 8 with bachelor s degrees 9 with some college and 5 with high school or less were unionized Also 11 of those with household incomes of 100 000 or more 7 of those with 40 000 to 99 999 and 3 with less than 40 000 were unionized Also only 6 of those in the private sector were unionized compared to 28 of government employees Many Democrats without college degrees differ from liberals in their more socially moderate views and are more likely to belong to an ethnic minority White voters with college degrees are more likely to live in urban areas There was no difference in support for Harris from African Americans based on education with Harris winning African Americans with and without a college degree 86 13 There was a modest difference in support for Harris among Hispanic voters with a college degree 54 42 and without a college degree 51 48 This was far less than the differences among Hispanic voters in urban 57 39 suburban 51 48 and rural areas 33 66 FactionsBar plot of the percentage of the population with a BA or higher in the electoral jurisdictions won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election Upon foundation the Democratic Party supported agrarianism and the Jacksonian democracy movement of President Andrew Jackson representing farmers and rural interests and traditional Jeffersonian democrats Since the 1890s especially in northern states the party began to favor more liberal positions the term liberal in this sense describes modern liberalism rather than classical liberalism or economic liberalism Historically the party has represented farmers laborers and religious and ethnic minorities as it has opposed unregulated business and finance and favored progressive income taxes In the 1930s the party began advocating social programs targeted at the poor Before the New Deal the party had a fiscally conservative pro business wing typified by Grover Cleveland and Al Smith The party was dominant in the Southern United States until President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 In foreign policy internationalism including interventionism was a dominant theme from 1913 to the mid 1960s The major influences for liberalism were labor unions which peaked in the 1936 1952 era and African Americans Environmentalism has been a major component since the 1970s Even after the New Deal until the 2010s the party still had a fiscally conservative faction such as John Nance Garner and Howard W Smith The party s Southern conservative wing began shrinking after President Lyndon B Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and largely died out in the 2010s as the Republican Party built up its Southern base The party still receives support from African Americans and urban areas in the Southern United States The 21st century Democratic Party is predominantly a coalition of centrists liberals and progressives with significant overlap between the three groups In 2019 the Pew Research Center found that among Democratic and Democratic leaning registered voters 47 identify as liberal or very liberal 38 identify as moderate and 14 identify as conservative or very conservative Political scientists characterize the Democratic Party as less ideologically cohesive than the Republican Party due to the broader diversity of coalitions that compose the Democratic Party The party has lost significant ground with voters without college degrees in the 21st century particularly white voters in the South but also in the Midwest and among non White voters except for African Americans In 2024 Democrats lost their last Senate seats in red states Democrats have consistently won voters with graduate degrees since the 1990s including a majority of White voters with graduate degrees Since the 2010s the party s main demographic gains have been among White voters with college degrees which were previously a Republican leaning group until 2016 The party still receives extremely strong support from African Americans but has lost ground among other racial minorities including Hispanics Native Americans and Asian Americans Liberals Top Percent of self identified liberals by state in 2018 according to a Gallup poll Bottom Linear regression of educational attainment vs liberalism by state based on the same Gallup data Modern liberals are a large portion of the Democratic base According to 2018 exit polls liberals constituted 27 of the electorate and 91 of American liberals favored the candidate of the Democratic Party White collar college educated professionals were mostly Republican until the 1950s but they had become a vital component of the Democratic Party by the early 2000s According to a 2025 Gallup poll 37 of American voters identify as conservative or very conservative 34 as moderate and 25 as liberal or very liberal For Democrats 9 identified as conservative 34 as moderate and 55 as liberal A large majority of liberals favor moving toward universal health care A majority also favor diplomacy over military action stem cell research same sex marriage stricter gun control environmental protection laws as well as the preservation of abortion rights Immigration and cultural diversity are deemed positive as liberals favor cultural pluralism a system in which immigrants retain their native culture in addition to adopting their new culture Most liberals oppose increased military spending and the mixing of church and state As of 2020 the three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition were the AFL CIO and Change to Win labor federations as well as the National Education Association a large unaffiliated teachers union Important issues for labor unions include supporting unionized manufacturing jobs raising the minimum wage and promoting broad social programs such as Social Security and Medicare This ideological group is strongly correlated with high educational attainment According to the Pew Research Center 49 were college graduates the highest figure of any typographical group It was also the fastest growing typological group since the late 1990s to the present Liberals include most of the academia and large portions of the professional class Moderates Moderate Democrats or New Democrats are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H W Bush in the 1988 presidential election Running as a New Democrat Bill Clinton won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections They are an economically liberal and Third Way faction that dominated the party for around 20 years until the beginning of Obama s presidency They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition The Blue Dog Coalition was formed during the 104th Congress to give members from the Democratic Party representing conservative leaning districts a unified voice after the Democrats loss of Congress in the 1994 Republican Revolution However in the late 2010s and early 2020s the Coalition s focus shifted towards ideological centrism One of the most influential centrist groups was the Democratic Leadership Council DLC a nonprofit organization that advocated centrist positions for the party The DLC disbanded in 2011 Some Democratic elected officials have self declared as being centrists including former President Bill Clinton former Vice President Al Gore Senator Mark Warner Kansas governor Laura Kelly former Senator Jim Webb and President Joe Biden The New Democrat Network supports socially liberal and fiscally moderate Democratic politicians and is associated with the congressional New Democrat Coalition in the House Annie Kuster is the chair of the coalition and former senator and President Barack Obama was self described as a New Democrat In the 21st century some former Republican moderates have switched to the Democratic Party Progressives Progressives are the most left leaning faction in the party and support strong business regulations social programs and workers rights In 2014 progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren set out Eleven Commandments of Progressivism tougher regulation on corporations affordable education scientific investment and environmentalism net neutrality increased wages equal pay for women collective bargaining rights defending social programs same sex marriage immigration reform and unabridged access to reproductive healthcare The Congressional Progressive Caucus CPC is a caucus of progressive Democrats chaired by Pramila Jayapal of Washington Its members have included Representatives Dennis Kucinich of Ohio John Conyers of Michigan Jim McDermott of Washington Barbara Lee of California and Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Ed Markey of Massachusetts were members of the caucus when in the House of Representatives As of 2024 the CPC is the second largest ideological caucus in the House Democratic Caucus by voting members behind the New Democrat Coalition Senator Bernie Sanders has often been viewed as a leader of the progressive movement he ran presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 Other members of the progressive faction include the Squad In the aftermath of Kamala Harris losing the 2024 presidential election the influence of the progressive faction has declined why Democratic presidentsAs of 2025 update there have been a total of 16 Democratic presidents Name lifespan Portrait State Presidency start date Presidency end date Time in office7 Andrew Jackson 1767 1845 Tennessee March 4 1829 March 4 1837 8 years 0 days8 Martin Van Buren 1782 1862 New York March 4 1837 March 4 1841 4 years 0 days11 James K Polk 1795 1849 Tennessee March 4 1845 March 4 1849 4 years 0 days14 Franklin Pierce 1804 1869 New Hampshire March 4 1853 March 4 1857 4 years 0 days15 James Buchanan 1791 1868 Pennsylvania March 4 1857 March 4 1861 4 years 0 days17 Andrew Johnson 1808 1875 Tennessee April 15 1865 March 4 1869 3 years 323 days22 Grover Cleveland 1837 1908 New York March 4 1885 March 4 1889 8 years 0 days24 March 4 1893 March 4 189728 Woodrow Wilson 1856 1924 New Jersey March 4 1913 March 4 1921 8 years 0 days32 Franklin D Roosevelt 1882 1945 New York March 4 1933 April 12 1945 12 years 39 days33 Harry S Truman 1884 1972 Missouri April 12 1945 January 20 1953 7 years 283 days35 John F Kennedy 1917 1963 Massachusetts January 20 1961 November 22 1963 2 years 306 days36 Lyndon B Johnson 1908 1973 Texas November 22 1963 January 20 1969 5 years 59 days39 Jimmy Carter 1924 2024 Georgia January 20 1977 January 20 1981 4 years 0 days42 Bill Clinton born 1946 Arkansas January 20 1993 January 20 2001 8 years 0 days44 Barack Obama born 1961 Illinois January 20 2009 January 20 2017 8 years 0 days46 Joe Biden born 1942 Delaware January 20 2021 January 20 2025 4 years 0 daysRecent electoral historyIn congressional elections 1950 present House of Representatives President SenateElection year No of seats won No of seats won Election year1950 235 435 28 Harry S Truman 49 96 5 19501952 213 435 22 Dwight D Eisenhower 47 96 2 19521954 232 435 19 49 96 2 19541956 234 435 2 49 96 0 19561958 283 437 49 64 98 15 19581960 262 437 21 John F Kennedy 64 100 1 19601962 258 435 4 66 100 3 19621964 295 435 37 Lyndon B Johnson 68 100 2 19641966 248 435 47 64 100 3 19661968 243 435 5 Richard Nixon 57 100 5 19681970 255 435 12 54 100 3 19701972 242 435 13 56 100 2 19721974 291 435 49 Gerald Ford 60 100 4 19741976 292 435 1 Jimmy Carter 61 100 0 19761978 277 435 15 58 100 3 19781980 243 435 34 Ronald Reagan 46 100 12 19801982 269 435 26 46 100 1 19821984 253 435 16 47 100 2 19841986 258 435 5 55 100 8 19861988 260 435 2 George H W Bush 55 100 1 19881990 267 435 7 56 100 1 19901992 258 435 9 Bill Clinton 57 100 1 19921994 204 435 54 47 100 10 19941996 206 435 2 45 100 2 19961998 211 435 5 45 100 0 19982000 212 435 1 George W Bush 50 100 5 20002002 204 435 7 49 100 2 20022004 202 435 2 45 100 4 20042006 233 435 31 51 100 6 20062008 257 435 21 Barack Obama 59 100 8 20082010 193 435 63 53 100 6 20102012 201 435 8 55 100 2 20122014 188 435 13 46 100 9 20142016 194 435 6 Donald Trump 48 100 2 20162018 235 435 41 47 100 1 20182020 222 435 13 Joe Biden 50 100 3 20202022 213 435 9 51 100 1 20222024 215 435 2 Donald Trump 47 100 4 2024In presidential elections 1828 present Election year Presidential ticket Votes Vote Electoral votes Result1828 Andrew Jackson John C Calhoun 642 553 56 0 178 261 178 Won1832 Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren 701 780 54 2 219 286 41 Won1836 Martin Van Buren Richard Mentor Johnson 764 176 50 8 170 294 49 Won1840 Martin Van Buren None 1 128 854 46 8 60 294 110 Lost1844 James K Polk George M Dallas 1 339 494 49 5 170 275 110 Won1848 Lewis Cass William O Butler 1 223 460 42 5 127 290 43 Lost1852 Franklin Pierce William R King 1 607 510 50 8 254 296 127 Won1856 James Buchanan John C Breckinridge 1 836 072 45 3 174 296 80 Won1860 Stephen A Douglas Herschel V Johnson 1 380 202 29 5 12 303 162 Lost1864 George B McClellan George H Pendleton 1 812 807 45 0 21 233 9 Lost1868 Horatio Seymour Francis Preston Blair Jr 2 706 829 47 3 80 294 59 Lost1872 Horace Greeley Benjamin G Brown Liberal Republican 2 834 761 43 8 69 352 11 Lost1876 Samuel J Tilden Thomas A Hendricks 4 288 546 50 9 184 369 115 Lost1880 Winfield Scott Hancock William H English 4 444 260 48 2 155 369 29 Lost1884 Grover Cleveland Thomas A Hendricks 4 914 482 48 9 219 401 64 Won1888 Grover Cleveland Allen G Thurman 5 534 488 48 6 168 401 51 Lost1892 Grover Cleveland Adlai Stevenson I 5 556 918 46 0 277 444 109 Won1896 William Jennings Bryan Arthur Sewall 6 509 052 46 7 176 447 101 Lost1900 William Jennings Bryan Adlai Stevenson I 6 370 932 45 5 155 447 21 Lost1904 Alton B Parker Henry G Davis 5 083 880 37 6 140 476 15 Lost1908 William Jennings Bryan John W Kern 6 408 984 43 0 162 483 22 Lost1912 Woodrow Wilson Thomas R Marshall 6 296 284 41 8 435 531 273 Won1916 Woodrow Wilson Thomas R Marshall 9 126 868 49 2 277 531 158 Won1920 James M Cox Franklin D Roosevelt 9 139 661 34 2 127 531 150 Lost1924 John W Davis Charles W Bryan 8 386 242 28 8 136 531 9 Lost1928 Al Smith Joseph T Robinson 15 015 464 40 8 87 531 49 Lost1932 Franklin D Roosevelt John Nance Garner 22 821 277 57 4 472 531 385 Won1936 Franklin D Roosevelt John Nance Garner 27 747 636 60 8 523 531 51 Won1940 Franklin D Roosevelt Henry A Wallace 27 313 945 54 7 449 531 74 Won1944 Franklin D Roosevelt Harry S Truman 25 612 916 53 4 432 531 17 Won1948 Harry S Truman Alben W Barkley 24 179 347 49 6 303 531 129 Won1952 Adlai Stevenson II John Sparkman 27 375 090 44 3 89 531 214 Lost1956 Adlai Stevenson II Estes Kefauver 26 028 028 42 0 73 531 16 Lost1960 John F Kennedy Lyndon B Johnson 34 220 984 49 7 303 537 230 Won1964 Lyndon B Johnson Hubert Humphrey 43 127 041 61 1 486 538 183 Won1968 Hubert Humphrey Edmund Muskie 31 271 839 42 7 191 538 295 Lost1972 George McGovern Sargent Shriver 29 173 222 37 5 17 538 174 Lost1976 Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale 40 831 881 50 1 297 538 280 Won1980 Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale 35 480 115 41 0 49 538 248 Lost1984 Walter Mondale Geraldine Ferraro 37 577 352 40 6 13 538 36 Lost1988 Michael Dukakis Lloyd Bentsen 41 809 074 45 6 111 538 98 Lost1992 Bill Clinton Al Gore 44 909 806 43 0 370 538 259 Won1996 Bill Clinton Al Gore 47 401 185 49 2 379 538 9 Won2000 Al Gore Joe Lieberman 50 999 897 48 4 266 538 113 Lost2004 John Kerry John Edwards 59 028 444 48 3 251 538 15 Lost2008 Barack Obama Joe Biden 69 498 516 52 9 365 538 114 Won2012 Barack Obama Joe Biden 65 915 795 51 1 332 538 33 Won2016 Hillary Clinton Tim Kaine 65 853 514 48 2 227 538 105 Lost2020 Joe Biden Kamala Harris 81 283 501 51 3 306 538 79 Won2024 Kamala Harris Tim Walz 75 017 613 48 3 226 538 80 LostSee alsoLiberalism portalPolitics portalUnited States portalDemocratic Party United States organizations List of political parties in the United States List of United States Democratic Party presidential candidates List of United States Democratic Party presidential tickets Political party strength in U S states Politics of the United States List of major liberal parties considered centre leftNotesThere are 45 senators who are members of the party however two independent senators Angus King and Bernie Sanders caucus with the Democrats Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892 All three incumbents in the 20th century to withdraw or not seek reelection Calvin Coolidge Harry S Truman and Lyndon B Johnson had succeeded to the presidency when their predecessor died then won a second term in their own right Three presidents in the 1800s made and kept pledges to serve only one term most recently Rutherford B Hayes Three Democrats Barack Obama in 2008 Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024 have since won an electoral vote from Nebraska s 2nd Congressional District but Johnson remains the last Democrat to carry the state as a whole Elected as Vice President with the National Union Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election Ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 Rejoined the Democratic Party in 1868 Died in office Republican Vice President Dick Cheney provided a tie breaking vote giving Republicans a majority until June 6 2001 when Jim Jeffords left Republicans to join the Democratic Caucus Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris provided a tie breaking vote giving Democrats a majority throughout the 117th Congress While there was no official Democratic nominee the majority of the Democratic electors still cast their electoral votes for incumbent Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson Although Tilden won a majority of the popular vote Republican Rutherford B Hayes won a majority of votes in the Electoral College Although Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote Republican Benjamin Harrison won a majority of votes in the Electoral College Although Gore won a plurality of the popular vote Republican George W Bush won a majority of votes in the Electoral College Although Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote Republican Donald Trump won a majority of votes in the Electoral College References About the Democratic Party Democrats March 4 2019 Archived from the original on April 6 2022 Retrieved April 15 2022 For 171 years the Democratic National Committee has been responsible for governing the Democratic Party Democratic Party March 12 2022 The Charter amp The Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States PDF p 3 Archived PDF from the original on March 27 2022 Retrieved April 15 2022 The Democratic National Committee shall have general responsibility for the affairs of the Democratic Party between National Conventions Cole Donald B 1970 Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire 1800 1851 Harvard University Press p 69 ISBN 978 0 67 428368 8 Arnold N Scott 2009 Imposing values an essay on liberalism and regulation Oxford University Press p 3 ISBN 9780495501121 Archived from the original on October 2 2020 Retrieved April 28 2020 Modern liberalism occupies the left of center in the traditional political spectrum and is represented by the Democratic Party in the United States Geismer Lily 2015 Don t blame us suburban liberals and the transformation of the Democratic party Politics and society in twentieth century America Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 15723 8 Cebul Brent Geismer Lily eds 2025 Mastery and drift professional class liberals since the 1960s Chicago The University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 83811 3 Bacon Perry Jr March 11 2019 The Six Wings Of The Democratic Party FiveThirtyEight Archived from the original on August 15 2021 Retrieved October 21 2021 Levitz Eric October 18 2018 America Already Has a Centrist Party It s Called the Democrats Intelligencer Retrieved October 2 2024 Ball Molly No Liberals Don t Control the Democratic Party The Atlantic Retrieved March 13 2017 Gaudiano Nicole Liberals seek ideological shift in the Democratic Party USA Today Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC Retrieved March 13 2017 Alterman Eric 2008 Why We re Liberals A Political Handbook for Post Bush America Penguin p 339 ISBN 9780670018604 Retrieved March 13 2017 Suffice to say that there has not been a huge swing away from the center since the 1970s Stein Letita Cornwell Susan Tanfani Joseph August 23 2018 Inside the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party Reuters Archived from the original on June 13 2022 Retrieved June 13 2022 Rae Nicol C June 2007 Be Careful What You Wish For The Rise of Responsible Parties in American National Politics Annual Review of Political Science 10 1 Annual Reviews 169 191 doi 10 1146 annurev polisci 10 071105 100750 ISSN 1094 2939 What are we to make of American parties at the dawn of the twenty first century The impact of the 1960s civil rights revolution has been to create two more ideologically coherent parties a generally liberal or center left party and a conservative party Cronin James E Ross George W Shoch James August 24 2011 Introduction The New World of the Center Left What s Left of the Left Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times Duke University Press ISBN 978 0 8223 5079 8 Archived from the original on August 20 2024 Retrieved August 7 2024 pp 17 22 182 Including the American Democratic Party in a comparative analysis of center left parties is unorthodox since unlike Europe America has not produced a socialist movement tied to a strong union movement Yet the Democrats may have become center left before anyone else obliged by their different historical trajectory to build complex alliances with social groups other than the working class and to deal with unusually powerful capitalists Taken together the three chapters devoted to the United States show that the center left in America faces much the same set of problems as elsewhere and especially in light of the election results from 2008 that the Democratic Party s potential to win elections despite its current slide in approval may be at least equal to that of any center left party in Europe Despite the setback in the 2010 midterms together the foregoing trends have put the Democrats in a position to eventually build a dominant center left majority in the United States Bruner Christopher January 1 2018 Center Left Politics and Corporate Governance What Is the Progressive Agenda Brigham Young University Law Review 267 338 While these dynamics have remained have remained important to the Democratic Party s electoral strategy since the 1990s the finance driven coalition described above remains high controverisal and unstable reflecting the fact that core intellectual and ideological tensions in the platform of the U S center left persist Hacker Jacob S Malpas Amelia Pierson Paul Zacher Sam December 27 2023 Bridging the Blue Divide The Democrats New Metro Coalition and the Unexpected Prominence of Redistribution Perspectives on Politics 22 3 Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association 3 doi 10 1017 S1537592723002931 ISSN 1537 5927 We conclude by considering why Democrats have taken this course why they are not perceived as having done so and why at this fraught juncture for American democratic capitalism political scientists could learn much from closer examination of the rich world s largest center left party Zacher Sam June 2024 Polarization of the Rich The New Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution Perspectives on Politics 22 2 338 356
