Republican Party (United States)

Republican Party
AbbreviationGOP
ChairpersonJoe Gruters
Governing bodyRepublican National Committee
U.S. PresidentDonald Trump
U.S. Vice PresidentJD Vance
Senate Majority LeaderJohn Thune
Speaker of the HouseMike Johnson
House Majority LeaderSteve Scalise
FoundersAlvan E. Bovay
Henry J. Raymond
... and others
FoundedMarch 20, 1854; 172 years ago (1854-03-20)
Ripon, Wisconsin, U.S.
Merger ofWhig Party
Free Soil Party
Anti-Nebraska movement
Headquarters310 First Street SE,
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Student wingCollege Republicans
High School Republican National Federation
Youth wing
Women's wingNational Federation of Republican Women
Overseas wingRepublicans Overseas
Ideology
Factions:
Political positionRight-wing to Far-right
International affiliation
CaucusesRepublican Governance Group
Republican Main Street Caucus
Republican Study Committee
Freedom Caucus
Colors  Red
Senate
53 / 100
House of Representatives
219 / 435
State governors
27 / 50
State upper chambers
1,122 / 1,973
State lower chambers
2,977 / 5,413
Territorial governors
2 / 5
Territorial upper chambers
15 / 97
Territorial lower chambers
9 / 91
Election symbol
Website
gop.com Edit this at Wikidata
^ A: Includes Trumpism.

The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is one of the two biggest political parties in the United States. Since the mid-1850s, its main opponent has been the Democratic Party. Both parties have controlled American politics ever since. The party sits on the right wing to far right of the political spectrum.

Ideologically, Republicans favor fiscal and social conservatism. It opposes single-payer healthcare, abortion, euthanasia, labor unions, affirmative action,and a high minimum wage. It advocates for low taxes, limited government, gun rights, free markets, traditional values and free trade. It did, however, hold protectionist opinions during its early days, for example during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. It also held anti-free trade opinions during Donald Trump's presidency.

The symbol of the Republican party is an elephant. This symbol was first used in 1874 in a political cartoon by Thomas Nast. The Republican National Committee (RNC) is the main organization for the Republican Party in all 50 states. The Republican Party is not the same political party as the Democratic-Republican Party. A state where most people vote for Republican politicians is called a red state.

History

The Republican Party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1853, with the help of Francis Preston Blair. The Republican Party was formed by people who did not like the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which would let each territory allow slavery. The Republican Party was founded by past members of the Free Soil Party and the Whig Party who wanted to stop the expansion of slavery. The founders of the Republican Party wanted to stop the expansion of slavery because they believed it was against the ideals of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Some founders of the Republican Party wanted to abolish slavery everywhere in the United States. The Republican Party's first candidate for president of the United States was John C. Frémont in 1856.

As the Whig Party collapsed, the Republicans became one of two major political parties in the United States (the Democratic Party was the other major political party). In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was elected. For the rest of the second half of the 19th century, the country had mostly Republican presidents. From 1860 until 1912 the Republicans lost the presidential election just twice (non-consecutively to Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892). Republicans believed in protectionism (the belief that raising taxes on trades with other countries would protect the economy) during the second half of the 19th century and during the early half of the 20th century. After World War I, the 1920s had three Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. It was called the Republican Decade for that reason. Harding and Coolidge made a plan for the economy which lowered taxes, made the government spend less money, and got rid of rules and laws that affected the economy.

Near the end of the 1920s, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. During the Great Depression, the Republican Party became less popular with people. No Republicans were president between 1933 and 1953, when Dwight Eisenhower began his first of two consecutive terms as president (he was re-elected in 1956). Richard Nixon lost the election in 1960 but was elected president on the Republican ticket in 1968 and again in 1972. Ronald Reagan, an actor and conservative political activist, was elected as president in 1980. Ronald Reagan became the first Republican president who used to be a member of the Democratic Party. Ronald Reagan served two terms and his successor George H.W. Bush served one term. Reagan wanted fewer laws to affect the economy and wanted the military to be stronger. Bill Clinton (a Democrat) was elected president in 1992, and re-elected in 1996. However, a new Congress was elected in 1994, and Republicans gained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. They voted against many of Clinton's ideas and proposed ideas of their own such as a line-item veto and a balanced budget amendment. In 2000, George W. Bush was elected president, defeating Al Gore in a very close election. Bush was re-elected in 2004.

After elections held in 2006, Republicans lost control of Congress. Democrat Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. Republican John Boehner was elected the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2010 and re-elected in 2012. In 2014, Republicans gained control of the Senate and the House. Boehner resigned in early October 2015 and was eventually succeeded by Paul Ryan of Wisconsin on October 29, 2015. On November 9, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College. Trump was the first Republican to take office as president since January 20, 2001, when George W. Bush was inaugurated. The Republicans lost the House and won the Senate in 2018. Paul Ryan retired in 2019 and was succeeded by Nancy Pelosi, who is a member of the Democratic Party. In 2020, the Republicans lost the presidency when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. In 2022, they were able to get control back of the House of Representatives, but not the Senate. In 2024, the Republicans won the presidency again when Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris. They were also able to hold their control of the House of Representatives, as well as gain control of the Senate.

Beliefs

Currently, the Republican Party is identified by classical liberalism, conservatism, and right-wing policies.

Most Republicans believe in the same things, but generally, these are the things many Republicans support in all:

Most supporters for the Republican Party come from states in the Southern, Deep South, parts of the Midwest, and the rural Northeast areas of the US, as well as from Montana; though they come from all over the United States, including the northern portion of California.

The party has moved in an illiberal direction since the early 2020s. Meanwhile, it has become less conservative and more radical. It has also aligned with and supported right-wing populist and far-right parties in Europe (for example, AfD, National Rally, Fratelli d’Italia, Fidesz, Freedom Party of Austria, Vox). Members of the party began to promote the Great Replacement conspiracy theory and engage in historical revisionism.

List of Republican presidents

# President Portrait State Term start Term end Years in office
16 Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) Illinois March 4, 1861 April 15, 1865 4 years, 42 days
18 Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) Ohio March 4, 1869 March 4, 1877 8 years, 0 days
19 Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) Ohio March 4, 1877 March 4, 1881 4 years, 0 days
20 James A. Garfield (1831–1881) Ohio March 4, 1881 September 19, 1881 199 days
21 Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886) New York September 19, 1881 March 4, 1885 3 years, 166 days
23 Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) Indiana March 4, 1889 March 4, 1893 4 years, 0 days
25 William McKinley (1843–1901) Ohio March 4, 1897 September 14, 1901 4 years, 194 days
26 Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) New York September 14, 1901 March 4, 1909 7 years, 171 days
27 William Howard Taft (1857–1930) Ohio March 4, 1909 March 4, 1913 4 years, 0 days
29 Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) Ohio March 4, 1921 August 2, 1923 2 years, 151 days
30 Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) Massachusetts August 2, 1923 March 4, 1929 5 years, 214 days
31 Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) California March 4, 1929 March 4, 1933 4 years, 0 days
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) Texas January 20, 1953 January 20, 1961 8 years, 0 days
37 Richard Nixon (1913–1994) California January 20, 1969 August 9, 1974 5 years, 201 days
38 Gerald Ford (1913–2006) Michigan August 9, 1974 January 20, 1977 2 years, 164 days
40 Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) California January 20, 1981 January 20, 1989 8 years, 0 days
41 George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) Texas January 20, 1989 January 20, 1993 4 years, 0 days
43 George W. Bush (born 1946) Texas January 20, 2001 January 20, 2009 8 years, 0 days
45 Donald Trump (born 1946) New York/
Florida		 January 20, 2017 January 20, 2021 5 years, 287 days
47 Florida January 20, 2025 Incumbent

List of famous Republicans

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Died in office
  2. ↑ Resigned from office

References

  1. ↑ The Origin of the Republican Party Archived March 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine by Prof. A. F. Gilman, Ripon College, WI, 1914.
  2. ↑ Widmer, Ted (March 19, 2011). "A Very Mad-Man". Opinionator. The New York Times. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Political Parties". Northern Illinois University Digital Library. Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
  4. ↑ Howe, Daniel Walker (Winter 1995). "Why Abraham Lincoln Was a Whig". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 16 (1): 27–38. doi:10.5406/19457987.16.1.05. hdl:2027/spo.2629860.0016.105. ISSN 1945-7987.
  5. ↑ "Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". Archived from the original on May 18, 2024. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
  6. ↑ "Major American Political Parties of the 19th Century". Norwich University Resource Library. Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  7. ↑ McPherson, James (2003) [1988]. The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-19-974390-2.
  8. ↑ James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: Volume I. The Coming of War, second edition (ISBN 0-07045837-5) p. 94.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ Smith, Robert C. (2021). "Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and the Future of the Republican Party and Conservatism in America". American Political Thought. 10 (2): 283–289. doi:10.1086/713662. S2CID 233401184. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ Wilbur, Miller (2012). "Libertarianism". The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. Vol. 3. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. pp. 1006–1007. ISBN 978-1-4129-8876-6. While right-libertarianism has been equated with libertarianism in general in the United States, left-libertarianism has become a more predominant aspect of politics in western European democracies over the past three decades. ... Since the 1950s, libertarianism in the United States has been associated almost exclusively with right-libertarianism ... As such, right-libertarianism in the United States remains a fruitful discourse with which to articulate conservative claims, even as it lacks political efficacy as a separate ideology. However, even without its own movement, libertarian sensibility informs numerous social movements in the United States, including the U.S. patriot movement, the gun-rights movement, and the incipient Tea Party movement.
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ "Members". IDU. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Regional Unions". International Democracy Union. Archived from the original on June 17, 2010. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  16. ↑ "About – ECR Party". European Conservatives and Reformists Party. August 4, 2022. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  17. 1 2 Ball, Molly (January 23, 2024). "The GOP Wants Pure, Uncut Trumpism". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on January 24, 2024. Retrieved February 22, 2024.
  18. ↑ Martin, Jonathan (March 1, 2021). "Trumpism Grips a Post-Policy G.O.P. as Traditional Conservatism Fades". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 23, 2024. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  19. ↑ Peoples, Steve (February 14, 2021). "Trump remains dominant force in GOP following acquittal". AP News. Archived from the original on June 12, 2024. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  20. ↑ Smith, Robert C. (2021). "Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and the Future of the Republican Party and Conservatism in America". American Political Thought. 10 (2): 283–289. doi:10.1086/713662. S2CID 233401184.
  21. ↑ "Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands". consent.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 2023-01-30. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  22. ↑ Staff, Media Matters (10 June 2020). "Ben Shapiro: "The only aspects of American life that are legally racist are legally racist on behalf of minority groups"". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  23. ↑ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay; Smialek, Jeanna (2019-07-18). "House Passes Bill to Raise Minimum Wage to $15, a Victory for Liberals". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  24. ↑ Appelbaum, Binyamin (2017-12-02). "Debt Concerns, Once a Core Republican Tenet, Take a Back Seat to Tax Cuts". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  25. ↑ Jacobs, Nicholas F.; King, Desmond; Milkis, Sidney M. (June 2019). "Building a Conservative State: Partisan Polarization and the Redeployment of Administrative Power". Perspectives on Politics. 17 (2): 453–469. doi:10.1017/S1537592718003511. ISSN 1537-5927. S2CID 181764492.
  26. ↑ Mitchell, Travis (2017-06-22). "1. The demographics of gun ownership". Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  27. ↑ Baldwin, Robert E. (2000). Congressional trade votes : from NAFTA approval to fast-track defeat. Georgetown University Law Library. Washington, DC : Institute for International Economics. ISBN 978-0-88132-267-5.
  28. ↑ Frankel, Jeffrey (15 June 2018). "The Republicans have a long history of protectionism". MarketWatch. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  29. ↑ "Is the GOP Still the Party of Free Trade?". www.reaganfoundation.org. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  30. ↑ Cartoon of the Day: "The Third-Term Panic". Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
  31. ↑ "Republican Party founded". History.com. 9 February 2010. Retrieved September 21, 2014.
  32. ↑ Stepansky, Joseph. "What does the Republican 'trifecta' mean for Trump and his agenda?". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 2025-02-03.
  33. ↑ Beer, Tommy. "Majority Of Republicans Believe The QAnon Conspiracy Theory Is Partly Or Mostly True, Survey Finds". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  34. ↑ "The Republican party is now an explicitly illiberal party". The Guardian. 2021-06-08. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-12-16.
  35. ↑ "The Republican Party has lurched towards populism and illiberalism". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2025-12-16.
  36. ↑ Kottasová, Ivana (2020-10-26). "Republicans are starting to look like authoritarian parties in Hungary and Turkey, study finds". CNN. Retrieved 2025-12-16.
  37. ↑ Cooley, Alexander; Nexon, Daniel H. (2021-12-14). "The Real Crisis of Global Order". Foreign Affairs. Vol. 101, no. 1. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2025-12-16.
  38. ↑ Dunwoody, Philip T.; Gershtenson, Joseph; Plane, Dennis L.; Upchurch-Poole, Territa (2022-08-10). "The fascist authoritarian model of illiberal democracy". Frontiers in Political Science. 4 907681. doi:10.3389/fpos.2022.907681. ISSN 2673-3145.
  39. ↑ Beauchamp, Zack (2021-06-15). "Call it authoritarianism". Vox. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  40. ↑ Starr, Paul (2026-03-27). "How the Republican Party Forgot It Was Conservative". The American Prospect. Retrieved 2026-04-26.
  41. ↑ Graham, David A. (2023-07-08). "The Democrats Are Now America's Conservative Party". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2026-04-26.
  42. ↑ Martin, Jonathan (2021-03-01). "Trumpism Grips a Post-Policy G.O.P. as Traditional Conservatism Fades". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-04-26.
  43. ↑ Boot, Max (2024-09-08). "How the GOP Went From Reagan to Trump". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2026-04-30. The Trump-dominated, populist-nationalist GOP is certainly very different from the conservative party that Reagan led in the 1980s [...]
  44. ↑ Amira, Karyn (2023-10-03). "Reagan wouldn't recognize Trump-style 'conservatism' – a look at how the GOP has changed". The Conversation. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  45. ↑ Hayes, Chris (2021-02-08). "The Republican Party Is Radicalizing Against Democracy". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  46. ↑ "From rhetoric to alignment: US political line echoes with Europe's far right". European Newsroom. 2025-12-17. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  47. ↑ Blake, Aaron (2021-09-27). "Analysis | How Republicans learned to stop worrying and embrace 'replacement theory' — by name". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
  48. ↑ Goldmacher, Shane; Broadwater, Luke (2022-05-17). "Republicans Play on Fears of 'Great Replacement' in Bid for Base Voters". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
  49. ↑ Legum, Judd (2022-05-17). "Republicans have invoked the 'great replacement' theory over and over". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
  50. ↑ Goidel, Spencer (2024-11-06). "Trump's comeback victory, after reshaping his party and national politics, looks a lot like Andrew Jackson's in 1828". The Conversation. Retrieved 2026-07-15. In recent years, historical revisionism – popularized by Tucker Carlson – has taken place within segments of the Republican Party.
  51. ↑ Lehmann, Chris (2025-01-06). "Trump's Next Term Will Make His Historical Revisionism Official". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
  52. ↑ Collinson, Stephen (2021-06-18). "Analysis: The Republican Party's mission: whitewash the Trump presidency". CNN. Retrieved 2026-07-15. In the most flagrant example of historic revisionism, some Republican lawmakers are now actively denying the heroism of officers who defended them from the insurrectionists on Capitol Hill.

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