The Critical Elections

Elections which led to shifts in power over American history. 

- 1800: The first election that involved a shift in power from one party to the other.

- 1828: The election of the candidate of the newly formed Democratic Party after the expansion of suffrage to non-property owning white males over 21 in each of the states.

- 1860: The election of the candidate of the newly formed Republican Party,

- 1896: After decades of tight competition with the agrarian oriented Democratic Party, the business oriented Republican Party dominates until the Great Depression.

- 1932: The election that brought in FDR, the New Deal, the New Deal Coalition, and cooperative federalism. 

- 1968: The south begins to shift to the Republican Party, an an uneasy balance of power is maintained between the two major parties.