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Republican Party

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After the collapse of the Whig Party, a variety of groups moved into a new coalition. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 and ran John C. Fremont as its first candidate for President of the United States in 1856. Its first successful candidate was Abraham Lincoln in 1860. From then until World War II, the Republican won the presidency consistently, losing only to Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892.

The party had the misfortune to be in power at the outset of the Great Depression. Its president was Herbert Hoover, who was crushed in the 1932 election by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Republicans thought they had beaten Harry S Truman in 1948 with Thomas Dewey but were disappointed. In 1952 and again in 1956, the Republicans nominated and won with Dwight D. Eisenhower. The party swung strongly to the right in 1964, with the nomination of Barry Goldwater. The liberal wing of the party is essentially extinct.

Presidents who have been Republicans include Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A Garfield, Chester Alan Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush.