These lists are a companion to the Wikipedia article entitled United States presidential nominating convention.
Elec- tion | Party | City | Year | Presidential nominee | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1832 | Anti-Masonic | Baltimore, Maryland | 1831 | William Wirt | usually considered the first U.S. political party nominating convention |
1836 | Anti-Masonic | Philadelphia | 1836 | no candidate nominated | |
1840 | Anti-Masonic | Philadelphia | 1838 | William Henry Harrison (Whig) | By 1840, Anti-Masons had been largely absorbed into the Whig Party |
Liberty | Albany, New York | 1840 | James G. Birney | first U.S. anti-slavery political party | |
1844 | Liberty | Buffalo, New York | 1843 | James G. Birney | |
Tyler Democratic | Baltimore | 1844 | John Tyler | Nominated sitting President Tyler in May 1844 but Tyler withdrew from running in August 1844. [Also known as the National Democratic or Democratic Republican Party] | |
1848 | Free Soil | Utica & Buffalo, New York | 1848 | Martin Van Buren | united Liberty Party supporters with anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs |
1852 | Free Soil | Pittsburgh | 1852 | John P. Hale | Most Free-Soilers joined the Republican Party after its foundation in 1854. |
1856 | American | Philadelphia | 1856 | Millard Fillmore (Whig) | The anti-immigrant American (or Know Nothing) Party endorsed Fillmore in February 1856, followed by the Whigs in September. |
The two right-hand columns show nominations by notable conventions not shown elsewhere. Some of the nominees (e.g. the Whigs before 1860 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912) received very large votes, while others who received less than 1% of the total national popular vote are listed to show historical continuity or transition. [For example, the Equal Rights Party convention of 1872 nominated the first national ticket to include either a woman (Victoria Woodhull) or an African-American (Frederick Douglass), although this ticket received no votes at all.]
Many important candidates are not shown here because they were never endorsed by a national party convention (e.g. William Henry Harrison in 1836, George C. Wallace in 1968, John B. Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992); for a list by year of all notable candidates (at least one Elector or 0.1% of the popular vote), please see List of United States presidential candidates.
Note that there is no organizational continuity between the American Parties of 1856 and 1972, the Union Parties of 1860, 1864, 1888, 1900 and 1936, or the Progressive Parties of 1912–16, 1924 and 1948–52.
The Prohibition Party was organized in 1869. At the 1896 Prohibition Party convention in Pittsburgh, the majority of delegates supported a "narrow-gauge" platform confined to the prohibition of alcohol, while a "broad-gauge" minority — who also wanted to advocate for Free Silver and other reforms — broke away to form the National Party.
The Socialist Party of America (1901–1972) resulted from a merger of the Social Democratic Party (founded 1898) with dissenting members of the Socialist Labor Party (founded 1876). The Socialist Party of America stopped running its own candidates for president after 1956, but a minority of SPA members who disagreed with this policy broke away in 1973 to form the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA).
¶ Note that the years refer to the relevant presidential election and not necessarily to the date of a convention making a nomination for that election. Some nominating conventions meet in the year before an election.
The Communist Party was formed by Leninists who had left the Socialist Party of America in 1919. The Socialist Workers Party was formed by Communists who followed Leon Trotsky rather than Joseph Stalin and briefly joined the Socialist Party before forming their own party in 1937.
Election | Communist Party convention | Communist nominee | SWP convention | Socialist Workers Party nominee |
---|---|---|---|---|
1924 | Chicago [Workers Party] | William Z. Foster | ||
1928 | New York City [Workers (Communist) Party] | William Z. Foster | ||
1932 | Chicago | William Z. Foster | ||
1936 | New York City | Earl Browder | ||
1940 | New York City | Earl Browder | ||
1944 | New York City (Communist Political Association) | no candidate nominated | ||
1948 | New York City | Henry A. Wallace (Progressive) | New York City | Farrell Dobbs |
1952 | Vincent Hallinan (Progressive) | New York City | Farrell Dobbs | |
1956 | New York City | Farrell Dobbs | ||
1960 | (Farrell Dobbs) | |||
1964 | New York City | Clifton DeBerry | ||
1968 | New York City | Charlene Mitchell | New York City | Fred Halstead |
1972 | New York City | Gus Hall | Detroit | Linda Jenness |
1976 | Chicago | Gus Hall | (Peter Camejo) | |
1980 | Detroit | Gus Hall | Oberlin, Ohio | Andrew Pulley |
1984 | Cleveland, Ohio | Gus Hall | New York City | Melvin T. Mason |
1988 | New York City | James Warren | ||
1992 | Chicago | James Warren | ||
In 1999, the United States Taxpayers' Party changed its name to the Constitution Party.
The individual article about a Libertarian convention or about a Green Party convention after 1996 is linked to its respective city in the table below. Cities linked for Constitution and U.S. Taxpayers' Party conventions lead to individual sections of Constitution Party National Convention.
The list below shows the location of the party convention, along with the winner of the election. Bold font indicates that party won the presidential election. If the party won the state where the convention was held — but not necessarily that city itself — the box is shaded. (For example, while the 1948 Democratic, Progressive and Republican conventions were all held in Philadelphia, the city itself narrowly voted for Democratic President Harry Truman, while the state of Pennsylvania as a whole voted for the Republican candidate, Thomas Dewey. In this table the 1948 Republican box is shaded, but the Democratic one is not.) [5] . Other parties are only listed if they garnered electoral college votes. [6]
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1856. Democratic nominee James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and Know Nothing/Whig nominee Millard Fillmore. The main issue was the expansion of slavery as facilitated by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. Buchanan defeated President Franklin Pierce at the 1856 Democratic National Convention for the nomination. Pierce had become widely unpopular in the North because of his support for the pro-slavery faction in the ongoing civil war in territorial Kansas, and Buchanan, a former Secretary of State, had avoided the divisive debates over the Kansas–Nebraska Act by being in Europe as the Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states had already abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union. This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president. It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1904, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016. Lincoln's 39.7% of the popular vote is to date the lowest for any winner not decided by a contingent election.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 1872. Incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican nominee, defeated Democratic-endorsed Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1884. Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York narrowly defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. It was set apart by mudslinging and personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1892. In the fourth rematch in American history, the Democratic nominee, former president Grover Cleveland, defeated the incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's victory made him the first president in American history to be elected to a non-consecutive second term, a feat not repeated until Donald Trump was elected in 2024. The 1892 election saw the incumbent White House party defeated in three consecutive elections, which did not occur again until 2024.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 1920. Republican senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio defeated Democratic governor James M. Cox of Ohio. It was the first election held after the end of the First World War, and the first election after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which gave equal votes to men and women. It was the third presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state, and the last time that the state was not New York. It was the first presidential election to have its results broadcast by radio. Coincidentally, the election was held on Harding's 55th birthday.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1924. Incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge won election to a full term. Coolidge was the second vice president, after Theodore Roosevelt, to ascend to the presidency and then win a full term.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1928. Republican former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover defeated the Democratic nominee, Governor Al Smith of New York. After President Calvin Coolidge declined to seek reelection, Hoover emerged as the Republican party's frontrunner. As Hoover's party opponents failed to unite around a candidate, Hoover received a large majority of the vote at the 1928 Republican National Convention. The strong state of the economy discouraged some Democrats from running, and Smith was nominated on the first ballot of the 1928 Democratic National Convention. Hoover and Smith had been widely known as potential presidential candidates long before the 1928 campaign, and both were generally regarded as outstanding leaders. Both were newcomers to the presidential race and presented in their person and record an appeal of unknown potency to the electorate. Both faced serious discontent within their respective parties' membership, and both lacked the wholehearted support of their parties' organization.
The Prohibition Party is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movement. It is the oldest existing third party in the United States and the third-longest active party.
The Constitutional Union Party was a political party which stood in the 1860 United States elections. It mostly consisted of conservative former Whigs from the Southern United States who wanted to avoid secession over slavery and refused to join either the Republican Party or Democratic Party. The Constitutional Union Party campaigned on a simple platform "to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the Enforcement of the Laws".
The 1860 Democratic National Conventions were a series of presidential nominating conventions held to nominate the Democratic Party's candidates for president and vice president in the 1860 election.
The 1860 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania took place on November 6, 1860, as part of the 1860 United States presidential election. Voters chose 27 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
This is the electoral history of Thomas Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, who served as the 28th President of the United States (1913–1921), and earlier as the 34th Governor of New Jersey (1911–1913).