APUSH Presidential Elections 1789-2012

-First presidential election under the Constituion -George Washington received 1 vote from each of the electors and was elected unanimously -North Carolina and Maryland did not cast votes because they had not yet ratified the Constitution

-President Washington re-elected with 133 electoral votes and John Adams returned as vice-president -Anti-Federalists gave George Clinton of New York 50 votes -Washington stepped down after his second term, establishing the 2-term tradition

-First election where candidates represented political parties and presented a ticket -Federalists: John Adams and Thomas Pinckney -Democratic-Republicans: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr -Strong showing by Jefferson because of the opposition to Jay's Treaty (1795) -Adams won a narrow victory: 71 to 68 electoral votes

-President John Adams not elected for a second term; Democratic-Republicans take control of Congress -Democratic-Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in electoral votes -Election decided by House of Representatives, which chose Jefferson -Led to 12th Amendment (1804) -- electors vote separately for president and vice-president

-First election with separate ballots for president and vice-president, as called for in the 12th Amendment -President Jefferson easily won reelection, and his running mate George Clinton of New York was chosen well -Jefferson ran strong in New England, a traditional Federalist stronghold -Most states chose electors by popular vote

-The so-called Virginia dynasty continued with the election of Democratic-Republican James Madison -New England turned to Federalist Charles Pinckney over Jefferson, whose trade policy hurt the region -Dissident Democratic-Republicans chose James Monroe, but he did not run

-The war with Great Britain split the Democratic-Republicans -The pro-war faction in the South and West renominated James Madison, while Peace Republicans backed DeWitt Clinton of New York -The Federalist Party supported Clinton rather tahn run its own candidate -Clinton did well in New England and New York, but Madison won a narrow victory

-James Monroe, Madison's secretary of state, won an easy victory over Federalist Rufus King -Last presidential election in which Federalists ran a candidate -Monroe's election marked the beginning of the Era of Good Feelings

-James Monroe reelected for a second term without any opposition -Monroe was not elected unanimously because several electors did not cast their votes and 1 voted for John Quincy Adams

-4 candidates from the Democratic-Republican Party: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford -Jackson received the most electoral and popular votes, but no candidate obtained a majority of the electoral votes -Election decided by the House of Representatives which chose Adams over Jackson due to the support of Clay

-Andrew Jackson for the Democrats and John Quincy Adams for the National Republicans -Campaign: morals of Jackson's wife questioned; Jackson as man of action vs. intellectual Adams -Over 1 million popular votes showed impact of eliminating property qualifcations for voting -2 political parties for first time since 1816 -Jackson won handily

-All parties selected their candidates through national nominating conventions -President Jackson was nominated by Democrats for a second term, along with Martin Van Buren as his running mate -Henry Clay was the National Republican candidate -The main issue was the Bank of the U.S., and Jackson's landslide allowed im to launch his \"war on the bank\"

-Vice-President Van Buren nominated by the Democrats to continue Jackson administration's policies -The new Whig Party failed to agree on a single candidate, and ran 4 who won electoral votes in different parts of the country -The popular vote margin between Van Buren and the Whigs was close, but the split assured his electoral victory

-Democrats chose President Van Buren for a second term despite the Panic of 1837 -Whigs turned to William Henry Harrison, hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe (1811) -Harrison portrayed as a man of the people through the \"log cabin and hard cider\" campaign -Largest voter turnout in presidential election to date; Harrison won

-Whigs nominated Henry Clay, while the Democrats chose James Polk of Tennessee -Democrats adopted an expansionist platform, which called for the \"reannexation of Texas\" and \"54 40 or Fight\" on the Oregon boundary -In a close election, the antislavery Liberty Party took votes from Clay in New York, giving Polk the victory

-Whigs nominated Mexican War hero General Zachary Taylor -Democrats chose Michigan senator Lewis Cass, who developed the concept of popular sovereignty -The Free-Soil Party candidate was Martin Van Buren, who took votes away from Cass in the North -Taylor elected with less than 50% of the popular vote

-Democrats chose Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire -Whigs nominated Mexican War hero General Winfield Scott -Both major parties accepted the Compromise of 1850; the Free-Soil Party, who ran a candidate, did not -Pierce won easily, showing the declining support for the Whigs

-Republicans ran John C. Fremont of California as their first presidential candidate -Democrats nominated James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; former president Millard Fillmore ran on the American (Know-Nothing) Pary ticket -Republicans, opposed to slavery expansion, only won votes in the North, giving Buchanan the election

-Abraham Lincoln Republican nominee -Democratic Party split; Northern Democrats chose Stephen Douglas and Southern Democrats selected John Breckenridge -John Bell ran for Constitutional Union Party -2 elections: Lincoln vs. Douglas in North; Breckenridge vs. Bell in South -Lincoln elected with 40% of popular vote; led to the secession crisis

-Lincoln succesfully ran for a second term with Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat from Tennessee, as his running mate -Lincoln and Johnson ran on the National Union Party ticket -Democrats nominated General George McClellan, former commander of Union forces -McClellan rejected the antiwar plank in the Democratic platform; played the race card

Republicans nominated Civil War commander U.S. Grant, while Democrats chose little known Horatio Seymour of New York -Key campaign issue was Radical Reconstruction; Republicans for, Democrats against -Republicans \"waived the bloody shirt,\" reminding voters of the Civil War -Large numbers of African Americans voted; Grant won

-Regular Republicans chose President Grant for a second term; the Liberal Republican candidate was Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune -Greeley also ran on the Democratic ticket -The \"bloody shirt\" was a factor in the election, which Grant won

-Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York vs. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio -Tilden won the popular vote by 250,000, but the outcome in 4 states was in dispute -- South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon -The Electoral Commission gave the disputed electoral votes to Hayes -Hayes declared president with 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184

-President Hayes chose not to run for a second term; after 36 ballots the Republicans nominated James Garfield of Ohio -Democratic candidate was Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania, another Civil War general -The protective tariff was the key issue between the major parties; Garfield was elected in close contest

-James Blaine was the Republican candidate; Democrats chose Governor Grover Cleveland of New York -Dissident Republicans who favored civil service reform backed Cleveland -In the campaign, Blaine charged with corruption and Cleveland accused of fathering an illegitimate child -Clevland was the first Democratic president in almost 30 years

-President Cleveland ran for a second term; the Republcians nominated Benjamin Harrison of Indiana -Republicans campaigned hard on the protective tariff and Civil War pensions, and were well financed -Clevland won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college

-President Harrison ran for reelceion, and the Democrats turned again to Cleveland -The Populist Party nominated James Weaver of Iowa, who earlier had run on the Greenback Labor ticket -The populists polled over 1 million votes and won 22 electoral votes -Cleveland became the first president to serve 2, nonconsecutive terms

-Republicans chose William McKinley of Ohio -Democratic nomination went ot William Jennings Bryan due to his \"Cross of Gold\" convention speech -The Populists endorsed Bryan and did not run their own candidate -Bryan wsa stron gin the South, the Plains, andn Mountain West; McKinley won with electoral votes in the Northeast and Midwest

-President McKinley ran for reelection with a new running mate - Spanish-American war hero Theodore Roosevelt -Bryan ran for the Democrats again, and made the key campaign issue McKinley's foreign policy -Impericalism did not strike a responsive cord with voters, and McKinley won

-Theodore Roosevelt, who became president with McKinley's assassination (1901), ran for a full term -The Democrats nominated Judge Alton Parker -The Republican platform reflected traditional pro-buisness positions rather than Roosevelt's record -Roosevelt won in a landslide but then stated he would not run for a second term

-William Howard Taft was President Roosevelt's choice for the Republican nomination -The Democrats selected William Jennings Bryan for the third and last time -Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs polled over 400,000 votes -Bryan had support from organized labor, but Taft, who was endorsed by a popular president, won

-President Taft received the Republican nomination despite a challenge from Theodore Roosevelt in the presidential primaries -Roosevelt ran as the candidate of the Progressive Party -Governor Woodrow Wilson was chosen by the Democrats -Wilson won the election because the Republican vote split between Taft and Roosevelt

-President Wilson ran for a second term on the slogan, \"He kept us out of the war\" -Republicans nominated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes; Theodore Roosevelt supported Hughes -Close election, with Wilson winning the electoral vote 277 to 254

-The Republican candidate was Senator Warren G. Harding (Ohio), while the Democrats picked Governor James Cox (Ohio), both dark horses -Harding called for a \"return to normalcy,\" while the Democrats supported the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles -Harding beat Cox in a landslide; Socialist Eugene V. Debs received over 900,000 votes

-President Coolidge successfully ran on a platform that emphasized low tariffs and limited federal spending -Democrats took 103 ballots to choose little known John W. Davis of West Virginia -Governor Al Smith of New York may have lost the nomination because of his religion (Catholic) and his opposition to Prohibition

-Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce under Harding and Coolidge, supported the economic and foreign policy of his predecessors -Democrat Al Smith went against the party's platform and called for repeal of the 18th amendment -Smith's position on Prohibition cost him votes even in the Democratic South; Hoover won in a landslide

-President Hoover was nominated for a second term despite the Depression -The Democrats selected New York governor Franklin Roosevelt, the first candidate to give an acceptance speech at the convention -Both parties called for balanced budget and cuts in federal spending -Roosevelt won with more than 57% of the vote

-Republicans nominated Governor Alf Landon of Kansas on a platform highly critical of the New Deal -Election saw shift in votes of African Americans to the Democratic Party -President Roosevelt easily reelected; Landon only won Maine and Vermont -Election seen as a strong endorsement of the Roosevelt administration's policies

-President Roosevelt accepted the Democratic Party's nomination to run for a third term, the first time in history -Wendell Wilkie, a businessman, was the Republican dark horse nominee -Both candidates supported aid to Great Britain, but Roosevelt stressed the U.S. would not go to war -Roosevelt won by a smaller margin than in the past

-President Roosevelt was nominated for a fourth term ad chose Senator Harry Truman of Missouri for his vice-president -Governor Thomas Dewey of New York was the Republican nominee -Roosevelt won with strong labor support, but died 3 months into his term; Truman became president in April 1945

-President Truman ran for a full term -Democrats split - States' Rights Party and Progressive Party, which nominated former Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace -Governor Dewey selected again for Republicans -Truman successully ran against the \"do nothing\" Republican Congress

-Republicans nominated Dwight Eisenhower, leader of Allied forces in WWII -Democrats turned to Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois -Southern Democrats stayed in the party despite a civil rights plank; Alabama Sentor John Sparkman was the choice for vice-president -Popular general won an easy victory; television ads used

-The election was almost a rerun of 1952 -The Republicans kept the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket, while the Democrats chose Senator Estes Kefauver as Adlai Stevenson's running mate -Kefauver ran strong in the primaries against Stevenson; Senator John Kennedy was considered for the vice-president spot -Eisenhower reelected in a landslide

-Democrats nominated Senator John Kennedy, the first Catholic to run for president since 1928 -Republicans selected Vice President Richard Nixon -First televised presidential debates -Kennedy won by less than 200,000 votes; allegations of voter fraud in Illinois and Texas not pursued

-President Lyndon Johnson ran for a full term with Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota for vice-president -Republicans chose conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona -Goldwater portrayed as an extremist who would get the U.S. into a nuclear war -Johnson won in a landslide, but there was evidence Democrats were losing support in the South

-Richard Nixon made political comback and got the Republican nomination -Nixon appealed ot conservative voters in South and campigned on a vague plan to end to Vietnam War -Third party candidate George Wallace ran well in the Deep South -Despite defections in the Solid South, Democrat Hubert Humphrey narrowed the race but Nixon won

-President Nixon ran for a second term; Watergate was not a serious issue -The Democrats chose stronly antiwar Senator George McGovern of South Dakota -McGovern dropped his running mate Senator Thomas Eagleton when it was revealed that he had been treated for depression -Nixon won every contest except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia

-President Ford was renominated despite a challenge from conservative Ronald Reagan -Success in the primaries gave former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter the Democratic nomination -Carter ran as an outsider and promised never to lie to the American people -Ford was hurt by the pardon and a misstatement on Poland in a debate; Carter won a close race

-Although he beat Senator Ted Kennedy in the primaries, President Carter was a weak candidate -Ronald Reagan was the Republican nominee while John Anderson, a former Republican congressman, ran as an independent -The Iranian hostage crisis and Carter's low approval rating gave Reagan a landslide victory

-President Reagan ran for a second term -Deomcrats chose Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's vice-president; African American leader Jesse Jackson ran well in the primaries -Mondale chose Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, first for a major party -With the economy improving, Reagan won by a larger margin than in 1980

-Vice President George H.W. Bush was the REpublican nominee -The Democrats selected Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts; Jesse Jackson showed support in the Democratic primaries -Bush pledged not to raise taxes and portrayed Dukakis as a soft-on-crime liberal -Bush won by a significant margin, but Democrats controlled Congress

-President George H.W. Bush ran for a second term -Democrats nominated Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas -Businessman H. Ross Perot ran as an independent third party candidate -The key issue was the economy plagued by high unemployment and the large deficit -Clinton won a significant electoral victory with only 43% of the vote; Perot got 19%

-President Clinton was nominated for a second term; Republicans chose Senator Rober Dole of Kansas -H. Ross Perot ran as the Reform Party candidate, but was not a factor -Clinton offered no major programs, while Dole called for a large tax cut -Clinton was easily reelected, but Republicans kept control of Congress

-Vice President Al Gore was the Democratic candidate; Governor George W. Bush of Texas ran for the Republicans -Gore won the popular vote, but the results in Florida were disputed and a recount was ordered byt the Florida courts -In a 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount, giving Bush the victory

-President Bush ran for a second term -Democrats chose Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Vietnam War hero who turned against the war -Kerry's war record was questioned during the campaign; portrayed as inconsistent on issues, including the Iraq War -High voter turnout gave Bush a sizeable popular vote but a narrower electoral victory

-Outgoing Republican President George W. Bush's policies and actions and the American public's desire for change were key issues throughout the campaign. -During the presidential election campaign, the major party candidates ran on a platform of change and reform in Washington. - Domestic policy and the economy eventually emerged as the main themes in the last few months of the election campaign after the onset of the 2008 economic crisis. -Democrat Barack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain. -There were several unique aspects of the 2008 election: -The election was the first in which an African American was elected President. -It was also the first time two sitting senators ran against each other. -The 2008 election was the first in 56 years in which neither an incumbent president nor a vice president ran -Bush was constitutionally limited from seeking a third term by the Twenty-second Amendment; Vice President Dick Cheney chose not to seek the presidency. - It was also the first time the Republican Party nominated a woman for Vice President (Sarah Palin, then-Governor of Alaska). -Additionally, it was the first election in which both major parties nominated candidates who were born outside of the contiguous United States. Voter turnout for the 2008 election was the highest in at least 40 years. -Issues of the Day: Great Recession, Financial panic, Bailouts, Iraq War -Obama received more votes than any candidate in history. The prior record, about 62 million, was set in 2004 by George W. Bush

-The Democratic nominee, incumbent President Barack Obama, and his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, were elected to a second term. -Their major challengers were the Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. -Although most major media outlets insisted before the election that the race was too close to predict a winner in advance, analysts using statistical models, bookmakers, and betting markets had Obama as a clear favorite. -Issues of the Day: Role of government, Spending & tax rates, Nuclear Iran, Arab Spring, Global warming, Campaign finance -Obama only the 2nd president (Wilson, 1916) to be elected to a second term with fewer electoral votes than earned when winning his first term -Few Battlegrounds: Despite a fairly competitive race overall, only four states were decided by less than a 5% popular vote margin