Democratic Party

noun

1. one of the two major political parties in the U.S., founded in 1828.

Democratic Party

noun

1. (in the US) the older and more liberal of the two major political parties, so named since 1840 Compare Republican Party

2. DP. (in South Africa) a multiracial political party of the centre-left, now the main opposition to the African National Congress

Democratic party

¹

1. One of the two major political parties in the United States; the Democrats. The origins of the Democrats are in the Democratic-Republican party, organized by Thomas Jefferson in the late eighteenth century; the first president elected simply as a Democrat was Andrew Jackson. Always strong in the South, the party was severely damaged by secession, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and did not produce a winning presidential candidate between 1861 and 1885, when Grover Cleveland was elected. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in contrast to the Republicans, the Democrats tended to be the party of the South and West, opposed to the interests of business and the Northeast. Woodrow Wilson, the next Democratic president, was part of the Progressive movement. In the period of the New Deal, in the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic party reached enormous strength among labor union members, minority groups, and middle-income people. The Democratic presidents since Roosevelt have been Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, James Earl Carter, and William Jefferson Clinton.

Democratic party

²

1. A political party that arose in the 1820s from a split in the Democratic-Republican party. Andrew Jackson was the first president elected from the Democratic party. The other Democratic presidents elected before the Civil War were Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. The party generally opposed the national bank, high protective tariffs, interference with slavery, and federal aid for internal improvements in the nation — all measures that the Whigs came to favor. The Democrats' greatest strength was with farmers, laborers, and people of the frontier.

The Democrats' party symbol (see also symbol) is the donkey.

Under President Clinton, the Democratic Party shed some of its New Deal legacies in order to win back white working-class and middle-class voters lost to the Republicans.

Since the New Deal, Democrats have emphasized the role of the federal government in promoting social, economic, and political opportunities for all citizens. They generally support a tax system that places a greater burden on the rich and large corporations, and they prefer spending on social programs to spending on defense. Today most blacks, along with Jews (see also Jews), liberals, and labor unions, support the party, which since the 1930s has been strong in major cities. The Democrats' strength in the white South, its strongest base before 1950, has slipped significantly, and in the 1970s and 1980s many blue-collar workers shifted to the Republican party.

Example Sentences

There’s a new battleground in the ongoing internal Democratic Party conflict between the progressive left and the party’s pro-Israel mainstream.

From Salon

Since the October 7 attacks, the Democratic Party establishment has largely stood by Israel as it carried out a brutal assault on Gaza.

From Salon

The powerful pro-Israel lobby’s standing among Democrats has become a flash point amid broader internecine conflict in the Democratic Party over Israel’s unrelenting war in Gaza.

From Los Angeles Times

“There’s no requirement that people love the Democratic Party in order to vote for it,” Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said last week.

From Los Angeles Times

Jim came to see government as a necessary agent for change and improvement, and that made the Democratic Party a more natural home.

From Los Angeles Times