Democratic Party

The Democratic Party is both the oldest political party in the United States and one of the oldest continuously active political parties in the world. Although it has historic roots that can be traced back to Thomas Jefferson’s (1743–1826) strongly anti-Federalist, state-centric Democratic-Republican Party, the modern Democratic Party evolved over the course of more than two hundred years into a socially and fiscally liberal political faction composed of supporters from a wide range of regional, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In the twenty-first century, the Democratic Party, along with the Republican Party, remains one of the two most powerful and influential forces in American politics.

The history of the Democratic Party began with the founding of the Democratic-Republican Party. In the...