Political Campaign Slogans
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50 free Political Campaign Slogans trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A good campaign slogan fits on a button and sticks for a century. Some were puns on a candidate's name, some were promises that aged badly, and a few began as insults that the target's own supporters adopted with pride. This quiz covers the best-known lines in American presidential history, the tunes and posters that carried them, and a handful of famous slogans from Britain and elsewhere. You will match slogans to candidates, trace where the phrases came from, and find out what happened after the votes were counted. It is written for history fans, civics classes and trivia hosts who want a round on elections. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'slogan' comes from 'sluagh-ghairm', a Scottish Gaelic term for which kind of shout?
A battle cry
A battle cry is what Gaelic clans meant by sluagh-ghairm, which joins the words for army and shout. English borrowed it in forms such as 'slughorn' before settling on slogan.
Q 02Whig supporters in 1840 pushed a giant paper globe covered in slogans from town to town, popularizing which phrase?
Keep the ball rolling
Keep the ball rolling was a newly coined phrase when Clevelanders built the sphere for a rally in Columbus. The stunt inspired the campaign's most famous song.
Q 03Which president's nickname 'Old Kinderhook' helped spread the expression 'OK' during his 1840 re-election campaign?
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren came from Kinderhook, New York, so Democrats claimed the fashionable initials stood for his nickname. He lost the election, but OK stuck.
Q 04Which Second World War general won the 1952 presidential election on the slogan 'I Like Ike'?
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower and his brothers were all called Ike as boys, a short form of the family surname. His landslide gave Republicans the White House for the first time in 20 years.
Q 05Which candidate registered 'Make America Great Again' as a service mark in 2015, weeks after entering the race?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump secured exclusive rights to the phrase for political use, but not for commerce. A radio host spotted the gap and trademarked it for merchandise that August.
Q 06Which 1928 Republican candidate did a party flier promote with the promise of 'a chicken in every pot'?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover was sold to voters in a Republican flier that also promised a car in every garage. The Wall Street Crash arrived less than a year into his presidency.
Q 07Walter Mondale's 1984 debate jab at Gary Hart borrowed a catchphrase from which fast-food chain's TV commercial?
Wendy's
Wendy's aired the ad that year with Clara Peller demanding to know where the meat was. Mondale turned her question on Hart's 'new ideas' and went on to win the nomination.
Q 08Which band's 1977 hit 'Don't Stop' became the theme song of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign?
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac played the song in person at Clinton's 1993 inaugural ball after he persuaded the group to perform. Christine McVie had written it about her ex-husband, bassist John McVie.
Q 09George H. W. Bush's 1988 convention pledge beginning 'Read my lips' promised that he would bring in no new what?
Taxes
Taxes went up anyway under a 1990 budget deal with Congress, and a primary rival threw the broken pledge back at him in 1992. Speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote the line.
Q 10Which president's 1984 re-election ad, narrated by adman Hal Riney, declared that it was 'morning again in America'?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan's ad was officially titled 'Prouder, Stronger, Better' and showed Americans heading off to work. He went on to carry 49 of the 50 states.
Q 11Which Illinois senator's 2008 presidential campaign turned the chant 'Yes We Can' into its rallying cry?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama made the phrase the refrain of a speech after finishing second in the New Hampshire primary. Numerous celebrities then sang his words back in a song supporting him.
Q 12Which strategist coined 'The economy, stupid' on a sign meant only for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign staff?
James Carville
James Carville hung the sign in the Little Rock headquarters to keep the team on message. It was written for insiders, yet one line became the campaign's unofficial slogan.
Q 13Which candidate's 1916 campaign ran on the slogan 'He Kept Us Out of War', months before America joined the fighting?
Q 21Which former Georgia governor ran for president in 1976 on the slogan 'A Leader, for a Change'?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter leaned on his farming roots too, flying between campaign stops in a chartered Boeing 727 nicknamed Peanut One.
Q 22Which former vice president campaigned in 2020 on the slogan 'Build Back Better' and won the presidency?
Joe Biden
Joe Biden kept the phrase in office as the name of his economic and infrastructure package.
Q 23Which street artist designed the red, beige and blue 'Hope' poster for the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign?
Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairey's first version carried the word 'progress' instead. The campaign worried about that word's connotations, so he changed it.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany in April 1917, barely a month after his second inauguration.
Q 14Which president asked voters in 1864 not to swap horses in the middle of a stream?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ran that year under a National Union banner, dropping the Republican name to attract Democrats who backed the war.
Q 15Which Conservative leader became prime minister in 1979 after the 'Labour Isn't Working' dole-queue poster campaign?
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher's party staged the poster's line of jobless people: only 20 Young Conservative volunteers turned up to be photographed.
Q 16Which 1920 candidate promised war-weary American voters a 'return to normalcy' and won the White House?
Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding was mocked for 'normalcy', which critics called a botched form of normality. The former newspaper editor replied that it was the word in his dictionary.
Q 17Which candidate's 1932 campaign adopted 'Happy Days Are Here Again', a song from the film Chasing Rainbows?
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt's advisers switched to the tune at the 1932 convention after a dirge-like 'Anchors Aweigh' had been played over and over without enthusiasm.
Q 18Which Republican did Harry Truman upset in 1948 after a whistle-stop shout gave him 'Give 'em Hell, Harry'?
Thomas E. Dewey
Thomas E. Dewey was so widely expected to win that the Chicago Tribune printed a front page announcing his victory, which Truman held up for the cameras two days after the vote.
Q 19The 1840 slogan 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too' recalled an 1811 victory over which Shawnee leader's confederacy?
Tecumseh
Tecumseh was away when the two sides met at Tippecanoe, so his brother Tenskwatawa, a spiritual leader known as the Prophet, was in charge of the warriors.
Q 20Which candidate's 1972 slogan, 'Now More Than Ever', preceded a landslide in which he carried 49 states?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon resigned less than two years after that victory, undone by the Watergate break-in carried out during the campaign.
Q 24Which Arizona senator's 1964 presidential slogan told voters that in their hearts they knew he was right?
Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater's opponents answered with parodies, the best known telling voters that in their guts they knew he was nuts.
Q 25Which 1884 Democratic candidate did Republicans taunt with the chant 'Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?'
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland had admitted paying support for a child born out of wedlock. After he won, Democrats capped the chant with 'Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!'
Q 26Which Labour leader's 1997 landslide campaign used D:Ream's 'Things Can Only Get Better' as its anthem?
Tony Blair
Tony Blair's Labour adopted the dance hit as its campaign theme, which sent it back into the charts. The band had once included the physicist Brian Cox on keyboards.
Q 27The 1840s expansionist slogan 'Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!' took its numbers from which feature of the Oregon dispute?
A line of latitude
A line of latitude at 54°40′ north marked the southern limit of Russian America, and expansionists wanted everything up to it. The border was settled at the 49th parallel instead.
Q 28A Democratic newspaper's sneer led the Whigs to hand out which drink at William Henry Harrison's 1840 rallies?
Hard cider
Hard cider and a log cabin were meant as an insult, a jibe that the candidate would happily retire with both. The Whigs made them the emblems of a man of the people.
Q 29Which suffragette leader founded a British women's union in 1903 under the motto 'Deeds, Not Words'?
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst wrote that the phrase was to be the union's permanent motto, after deciding that women had to do the work themselves.
Q 30Which singer recorded his Oscar-winning song 'High Hopes' with new words for John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra had introduced the original a year earlier in the film A Hole in the Head, singing it with the child actor Eddie Hodges.