Republican Party history from the year you were born

After the Democrats—who ultimately took both houses of Congress in the 1930 elections—took office, Republicans became a minority in the federal government. However, they later retook Congress in 1946.

Held amidst the Great Depression, the 1932 presidential election saw Republican incumbent President Herbert Hoover run against Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York’s governor). Although Hoover faced little contest in terms of receiving the Republican nomination, FDR eventually won by a landslide by promising economic recovery through his “New Deal” plan.

Early 1930s Republicans’ legislative agenda was already at a disadvantage when Democratic President Roosevelt took over and began implementing sweeping New Deal legislation. However, they became even more of a minority when Democrats upheld their majority during the 1933 midterm elections.

By the time that the winners of the 1933 midterm elections were sworn in, there were 71 Democrats in Congress, but only 25 Republicans. A similar divide also occurred in the House of Representatives, leaving Republicans relatively unable to effectively protest FDR’s Second New Deal.

FDR's second stage of the New Deal included major programs like Social Security, rural electrification, and the Banking Act of 1935. However, many Republicans found it akin to socialism and were vocal detractors of the legislation.

After receiving the presidential Republican nomination over more progressive Senator William Borah, Kansas governor Alf Landon ran in hopes of unseating incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Landon criticized the New Deal’s inefficiency, Roosevelt achieved another landslide victory.

A group of conservative Republicans and Democrats known as the “Old Right” gathered together in protest of the New Deal and FDR. By 1937, they formed a conservative coalition that remained in Congress until 1964.

While they remained a minority, Republicans had good news in the 1938 midterm elections, as Democrats lost six Senate seats and 71 House seats. Furthermore, they remained a uniformly united political party, while the Democrats were divided after FDR’s failed attempt to pack the court with conservative Democrats via the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937.

Republicans soon became divided over whether or not to offer aid to the United Kingdom, a U.S. ally, as World War II began. Isolationists (such as Arther Vandenberg and Robert A. Taft) wanted to avoid getting indirectly involved with the war, while internationalists (like Frank Knox and Henry Stimson) wanted to help the country.

The event was only aired by New York's W2XBS station. During the convention, which took place in Philadelphia, lawyer Wendell Willkie was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate.

The debate amongst Republicans over whether or not to get involved in the war ended after Japanese forces attacked the U.S. military base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. After the attack in December of 1941, the United States officially entered World War II.

In this election, which took place during FDR’s third term in office, Republicans picked up important seats in Congress. Republicans won 209 House seats, while Democrats took 222 seats, making it the party’s most successful election since the 1930s.

Although the 78th Congress still contained a Democratic majority in both chambers, Republicans were able to make more substantial changes thanks to the gains they achieved in the recent midterm elections. Joseph W. Martin Jr. served as the Republican minority leader during the session, and many New Deal assistance programs were repealed because of a wartime production boom.

During this World War II-era election, New York Republican governor Thomas E. Dewey lost to FDR, who was elected to a historic fourth presidential term. During his campaign, Dewey accused the president of indirectly helping American communists and large Democratic organizations through his legislation.

Roosevelt died just months into his fourth term, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman as his successor. Truman was criticized amidst mounting labor strikes and post-war unrest, which Republicans capitalized on in order to retake Congress the following year.

This marked the first time the political party had controlled Congress in 16 years. Since new president Harry S. Truman was not receiving the same popularity as his predecessor (President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who he succeeded after his death), 54 Republicans were able to successfully gain House of Representatives seats.

Enacted by a Republican-majority Congress, the Taft-Hartley Act restricted the autonomy and power of U.S. labor unions. It was later passed over President Truman’s veto in summer of 1947.

At this convention, Thomas E. Dewey once again received the Republican presidential nomination, this time running against President Harry S. Truman. That year’s RNC, which was held in Philadelphia, also focused on a crackdown on communism and an extension of Social Security for Americans.

Starting in 1948, Democratic lawyer Frank E. Hook attempted to unseat Michigan Republican representative Homer Ferguson, who had held the role for a decade. He ultimately failed, and Ferguson won his second term race with over 44,000 votes.

Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted an aggressive campaign to snuff out supposed communist individuals and institutions in the United States from 1950 to 1954, that was eventually known as McCarthyism. Although most of these people did not belong to the Communist Party, many were fired from their jobs and/or blacklisted anyway.

The five-star general, who played a key role in Pacific warfare during World War II and was a former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, was fired for his remarks about using U.S. nuclear weapons on China during the Cold War. The public were largely against MacArthur’s firing, and by early 1952, Truman’s approval rate fell to 22%.

Eisenhower didn’t just defeat Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson, he also ended a string of Democratic presidential wins dating back to 1932. He faced many major national and international events during his time in the White House, from the Korean War to the civil rights movement.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly, the Republican president called for the enlightenment of the American people and their allies about nuclear weapons. This led to the “Atoms for Peace” program, which did just that under the threat of Cold War nuclear warfare.

The rare decision to silence the Republican senator came after his controversial investigations of alleged communists in American society. After accusing a number of U.S. Army officers of communist sympathies, President Eisenhower finally ordered an investigation into McCarthy’s work, leading to his censuring.

In one of the very earliest instances of American involvement in the Vietnam War, Eisenhower sent the first U.S. military advisors to South Vietnam in early 1955. They went to train the South Vietnamese Army for combat against the North Vietnamese.

Eisenhower had a presidential election rematch with his Democratic former opponent, Adlai Stevenson, who he defeated once again. The president’s reelection campaign was bolstered by a steady American economy and a recent end to the Korean War.

Although Eisenhower was known for his more centrist conservatism, he did ultimately send federal troops to protect African American students in Little Rock, Arkansas from white segregationists' anti-Black violence as they began school at a recently desegregated high school. In doing so, his actions marked one of the first times where the national government intervened in terms of state-by-state racial segregation.

The process of Alaska becoming a state was more complicated than the process for some other states, because it bordered the Soviet Union and joined the U.S. during the Cold War. However, Eisenhower ultimately signed the Alaska Statehood Act in summer 1958.

Eisenhower voiced support for Hawaiian statehood early in his presidency, a step that Hawaiian citizens echoed when they voted on a referendum to accept U.S. statehood in June 1959. In August 1959, the president signed a proclamation making Hawaii the 50th state.

At the time, Hoover was the only living former Republican president. He gave a farewell speech on the opening day of the Chicago convention, returning to the place where he'd been renominated as the Republican presidential nominee in 1932.

The Republican president did so by closing the U.S. embassy in Havana as U.S. relations with leader Fidel Castro grew more and more strained during the Cold War. Soon afterwards, Eisenhower’s administration authorized the training of Cuban immigrants to attempt to overthrow Castro and lessened trade with the country.

Nixon, who later became president (and had recently served as the U.S. vice president), lost the election to incumbent Pat Brown. In his concession speech, the Republican politician famously said, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.”

In June of 1963, GOP senators issued a statement reaffirming civil rights activism. It read, “The Republican Members of the U.S. Senate … reassert the basic principles of the party with respect to civil rights, and further affirm that the president, with the support of Congress ... must protect the rights of all U.S. citizens regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.”

NBC reporter John Chancellor got arrested at 1964’s Republican National Convention when he refused to leave after reporters were rushed off the convention floor following Barry Goldwater’s presidential nomination. He then famously declared on television, “This is John Chancellor, somewhere in custody!”

President Johnson signed this law, which abolished immigration discrimination against groups including Eastern Europeans and Asian immigrants. In 2016, Politico reported that the law "gave the Republican Party its race problem," because the modern Republican party appeals to white Americans and white immigrants, distinguishing them from immigrants of color.

The Republican politician had recently served as an Attorney General in Massachusetts. In 1966, he became the first African American to become a popularly elected Senator since America’s Reconstruction era.

The former actor and entertainer ran on promises to “send the welfare bums back to work” and clean up anti-war student protests. He then defeated long-time Democratic governor Pat Brown, an important stepping stone towards his eventual presidency.

In a rare turn of events, neither the Democratic or Republican candidates received over 50% of the national popular vote, since third-party politician George Wallace was especially popular. Still, California Republican and Senator Nixon managed to defeat incumbent Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

After nearly four years of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, newly inaugurated President Nixon announced in a Guam press conference that the U.S. would now expect its Asian allies to “bear primary responsibility to provide the manpower for [their] own defense.” However, he clarified that the U.S. would still act as a nuclear umbrella for these countries when necessary.

After significant anti-war protests in response to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, Nixon's deployment of American troops to Cambodia sparked even more controversy. He did this so that the military personnel could invade the Southeast Asian nation with South Vietnamese soldiers and remove Northern Vietnamese military personnel from the area.

The Nixon Shock occurred when the president introduced his New Economic Policy program to create “a new prosperity without war.” In doing so, he effectively ended the Bretton Woods system that established fixed exchange rates in the aftermath of World War II.

Richard Nixon’s reelection also gave him one of the most significant victories in presidential election history, since he received a 23.2% margin of victory over Democratic opponent George McGovern. Young people had a say in this landmark decision as well, since this was the first election in which 18-year-olds could vote. However, the Watergate scandal also marked the beginning of the end for Nixon when it broke that same year.

After the Watergate scandal was publicized, televised Senate hearings began, in which White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the chief White House advisors and former Attorney General approved the break-in to the Democratic National Convention headquarters. Politician Fred Thompson also was told about the secret Nixon tapes, which proved that the president had been aware of the operation.

When President Nixon resigned, he did so in response to a probable impending impeachment decision. The reason for this impending impeachment was that he played a role in concealing the 1972 Watergate scandal, in which Republican operatives broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Two attempts were made on the Republican president's life in the span of just 17 days. In the first, an assailant trained a handgun on him while he was visiting the California Capitol, and in the second, a woman aimed a gun at him as he left a San Francisco hotel.

The entertainer-turned-governor conceded the Republican nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford. However, he later accepted the same nomination in 1980.

A year after conceding the Republican nomination to Ford, Reagan gave a speech in Washington calling on his fellow Republicans to “start acting to bring about the great conservative majority party we know is waiting to be created.” He emphasized that the new Republican Party should bring together people who are conservative on “social issues” like quota systems, crime, and abortion.

In the 1978 midterm elections, Republicans gained win after win in Minnesota. The wins nearly doubled the party’s ranks in the federal government, and the election night was dubbed “the Minnesota massacre.”

Notably, Treen’s election made him the first Republican Louisiana governor in more than a century. He served a single term in office, during which he prioritized creating a professional educational development program and cutting state income taxes.

Reagan achieved a landslide victory over Democratic opponent, incumbent President Jimmy Carter. This ushered in an era of significant conservative American political power, and the new president immediately shifted to dramatically increasing federal defense spending in response to the Iranian hostage crisis.

Republican Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court when she was appointed by President Reagan in 1981. She served on the court until 2006, and President Barack Obama later gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

President Reagan appeared to voice his support for England amid their conflict with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. In doing so, he became the first American president to speak during a joint session of Parliament in the country.

Under Reagan, the “Star Wars'' program (aka The Strategic Defense Initiative) was conceived in an attempt to create an antiballistic missile shield for the U.S. in case of a nuclear attack. By 1987, the American Physical Society determined that such technologies were years from practical application.

Reagan secured reelection in 1984 with the biggest landslide victory in U.S. victory: a whopping 525 electoral votes. In contrast, Democratic candidate Walter Mondale won only the state of Minnesota.

The Republican vice president briefly took over for President Reagan while Reagan had colon cancer surgery. Bush later became the 41st U.S. president in 1989.

This major scandal broke during the Reagan administration’s second term, and involved the coverup of senior presidential administrators secretly selling weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran, resulting in financial aid to the American-funded Contras in Nicaragua (Congress had ruled against providing the Contras more aid). Reagan refused to take full responsibility for the scandal until 1987.

In signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan took a major step towards ending Cold War conflicts between the two nations. The treaty forbade the countries from fielding a number of missiles, although President Donald Trump later withdrew the U.S. from the treaty in 2018 based on supposed Russian noncompliance.

In winning the presidency, Bush became the first sitting American vice president to be elected president since Martin Van Buren in the 1836 presidential election. The Republican nominee’s defeat of Democrat Michael Dukakis was also the most recent time in which one of the country’s political parties won three presidential elections in a row.

Though this wasn’t the first time the term was used, Bush officially aimed to take the issue of drug abuse to task by creating the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Although money for law enforcement was increased under the office, spending on addiction treatment made up less than a third of its budget.

The U.S. and Soviet leaders signed another treaty in 1990, this time to stop chemical weapon production in their respective countries and eventually destroy 80% of their chemical weapons catalog. This proved to be relatively short-lived, though, since President George W. Bush ordered troops to invade Iraq in search of similar weapons in 2003.

The Republican judge is currently the longest-serving Supreme Court judge currently working, and is generally regarded as one of the most conservative judges. He was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and his confirmation process was marked by interviews with his former aide Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

In doing so, he became the first U.S. president to ever speak during an Australian Parliament session. He joked about the recent removal of Prime Minister Bob Hawke, saying, “I see this rough tumble that goes like this, and I thank God for the presidential system at home.”

The Kuwaiti government allegedly found an Iraqi assassination plan that targeted ex-president George H.W. Bush during his visit there. Later, two Iraqi individuals confessed to driving a car bomb into the country during that same time.

In repudiation of Democratic President Bill Clinton’s policies, Republicans gained majorities in both bodies of Congress during the 1994 midterm elections. This was the first time that the party had done so since 1952.

With the first Republican majority in both chambers of Congress in decades, Congressional Republicans set to work enacting conservative legislation that often flew in the face of Democratic President Clinton. Much of that was listed in the Contract With America, a legislative agenda that many party members had advocated for during their 1994 Congressional campaigns.

He and his running mate, Jack Kemp, were officially nominated at the San Diego Republican National Convention. However, he ultimately lost to Democratic candidate Bill Clinton.

The South Carolina senator surpassed the previous record of 41 years and 10 months in May 1997, a record later broken by politicians Daniel Inouye and Robert Byrd. However, his record as the longest-serving Republican senator in American history still stands.

Republican House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde oversaw Clinton’s impeachment process following the Monica Lewinsky scandal, sending him 81 questions about his involvement with Lewinsky. Clinton was later impeached in early 1999.

Hastert served as the U.S. House of Representatives’ 51st Speaker from 1999 to 2007, making him the longest-serving Republican to ever hold that role. More recently, he became one of the most high-profile politicians to serve a prison sentence, when he admitted past sexual abuse of students and was convicted of financial crimes relating to child molestation cover-ups in 2015.

The 2000 presidential election was a long and bitter process, since a particularly close Florida race meant that determining the winner took weeks. However, the Supreme Court ultimately named Republican nominee George W. Bush the winner, making him the 43rd president after his father, George H.W. Bush, previously served as the 41st president.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the president signed legislation authorizing the use of federal forces against the terrorist group ISIS. It has since led to military deployment in countries like Afghanistan, Yemen, the Philippines, and Ethiopia.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Republican president Bush and Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, which made sweeping, dramatic changes to national security. It introduced the biggest changes to federal security measures since the Department of Defense was originally established in 1947.

The president teamed up with U.S. allies like Australia and the U.K. and began aggressively bombing Iraq through the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign. Their mission was to find and destroy Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons were ever found.

The Republican president, who passed away due to Alzheimer’s-related complications, left behind a staggering conservative legacy, such as his “Reaganomics” economic policies and “anti-communist” work. One economist argues that Reagan’s actions are responsible for a current crisis that started with “slashing taxes on the rich, dismantling regulations, cutting back on public programs and turning many of the nation's problems back to the states.”

The current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was nominated by President George W. Bush, and previously worked in roles like Associate Counsel to the President and Principal Deputy Solicitor General. He presided over major court cases like Shelby County v. Holder and King v. Burwell, and oversaw President Trump's first impeachment trial. (Roberts declined to preside at the second one).

The administration suggested spending $114 million on educational programs covering languages not ordinarily taught in American public schools. Some of these languages included Arabic, Persian, and Chinese.

Announced during a presidential speech under the title “The New Way Forward,” the surge resulted in Bush sending an additional 20,000 soldiers to the war in Iraq. “Our troops have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods [...] And to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs,” he said.

When she became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, Palin also became the first woman to ever become a Republican vice presidential nominee. However, the pair ultimately lost to Democratic nominee Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden.

The year 2009 was marked by party disputes over a sweeping healthcare reform bill, which cost $1.2 trillion dollars and required that employers offer health insurance. Republicans emerged in staunch opposition, with Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan stating, “This is perhaps the worst bill I have seen come to the floor in my 11 years of Congress.”

The party's overwhelmingly successful campaign strategy focused on promises to combat many of President Obama's recent policies, particularly his proposed regulation of Wall Street. Though Republicans only needed to unseat 39 Democrats to take back the House, they won a landslide victory of over 60 spots.

In a blow to Congressional Democrats, the Republican politician won the seat for New York’s ninth Congressional district in a special election held after Anthony Weiner resigned. Notably, he was the first Republican representative for the district in 88 years.

The Republican Senator picked Paul Ryan as his running mate, and preelection debates focused heavily on the candidates’ differing views on how to address the Great Recession and lingering foreign policy issues. However, Obama ultimately achieved reelection, with 332 electoral votes.

Over the course of the year, numerous Republican politicians gave lengthy filibusters in protest of policies put forth by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Rand Paul delivered an almost 13-hour filibuster questioning the White House’s international use of drones, while Ted Cruz gave a lengthy 21-hour address calling for the defunding of the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans won the Senate majority in the midterm elections, a majority that they held in the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections. They also gained 13 House seats, creating a substantial party majority in Congress as a whole.

The controversial 52nd president first announced his presidential run in 2015, quickly rising to the top of Republican primary polls soon afterwards. He soon drew plenty of fire for calling Mexican immigrants rapists, calling Hillary Clinton's debate bathroom break "disgusting," calling for a Muslim ban, and more.

Although Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton secured the 2016 popular vote by a margin of almost 3 million ballots, Republican candidate Donald Trump won the electoral college and the presidency with 304 electoral votes. This made the 2016 presidential election the fifth U.S. election in which the winner lost the popular vote.

In 2017, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the historic Paris Agreement, which was adopted by 195 nations in 2015 to combat climate change. However, under agreement regulations, there was a three-year delay, and the United States officially became the first country to withdraw from the agreement in late 2020.

Trump claimed that the deal, in which the U.S. financially rewarded the country for curtailing some elements of its nuclear program, “is defective at its core.” Former President Barack Obama called the move a “serious mistake,” while allies like France, Germany, and the U.K. released a joint statement expressing “regret and concern” about Trump’s decision.

Impeachment hearings were conducted to investigate President Trump after he allegedly sought help from the Ukrainian government in the 2020 presidential election, and subsequently obstructed Congress. Although the House of Representatives impeached him in January 2020, the Senate ultimately acquitted the president.

After a year in which the U.S. was ravaged by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and a presidential term filled with controversy, President Trump became one of the few recent presidents to lose his reelection bid when Democrat Joe Biden became the president-elect after days of waiting for official election results. Republicans also lost control of the Senate after losing both of Georgia's run-off elections in January 2021.

Even after his departure from the White House, Trump continued to have an influence on the Republican party. Over 150 Republicans opposed to the ex-president and his policies have splintered into their own movement, committed to “evidence-based policymaking and honest discourse" with a “conservative to moderate point-of-view.”