US Presidential Elections
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98 free US Presidential Elections trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free US Presidential Elections trivia questions with answers. American elections are stranger than the civics textbook lets on. A candidate has won the presidency while losing the popular vote more than once, one election was settled by a special commission, and the voting age, the ballot itself and who is allowed to cast one have all changed by constitutional amendment. These 98 questions cover the whole subject: how the Electoral College works, the amendments that expanded voting rights, the closest and most lopsided results, famous campaign slogans and debates, third-party spoilers, recounts and the traditions around Election Day. It opens with warm-ups most people will get and builds to questions that even political junkies have to think about. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, shown under each question once you answer, so it works for a civics class, an election-night party or a general-knowledge quiz round on voting and politics.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which president won every elector's vote in both of his elections?
George Washington
George Washington twice won every elector's vote, yet in his Farewell Address he warned that party rivalry could harden into despotism.
Q 02If no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, which body chooses the US president?
The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives votes state by state, one vote per delegation, so the smallest state counts as much as the biggest.
Q 03Which president served two non-consecutive terms, making him both the 22nd and 24th president?
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland had a tumor secretly removed from his mouth aboard a yacht in 1893, fearing news of his illness would deepen a financial panic.
Q 04Who was the first Catholic to win a major party's presidential nomination?
Al Smith
Smith, the Democratic governor of New York, lost the 1928 election to Herbert Hoover in a landslide, with anti-Catholic sentiment a major factor in his defeat.
Q 05Which slogan did the Republican campaign use in the 1952 presidential election?
I Like Ike
I Like Ike backed Dwight Eisenhower, who had earlier turned down a private offer to run for president as a Democrat.
Q 06What day of the week are US presidential elections always held on?
Tuesday
US presidential elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, a tradition established by Congress in 1845 to accommodate the agrarian schedule of the time.
Q 07Which state is traditionally the first to hold its presidential primary?
New Hampshire
New Hampshire's state law requires it to hold the first primary, so it went ahead in January 2024 even after Democrats moved South Carolina first.
Q 08Who was the Northern Democrats' nominee against Abraham Lincoln in 1860?
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen A. Douglas broke with custom by campaigning in person, and with defeat looming he toured the South to speak against secession.
Q 09Which broken 1988 campaign pledge dogged George H. W. Bush in his 1992 re-election loss?
Read my lips: no new taxes
Read my lips: no new taxes came from Bush's 1988 convention speech, and after he agreed to raise taxes, many Republicans never forgave him.
Q 10Which change to the US Constitution guaranteed women the right to vote nationwide?
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment won Tennessee's deciding vote in August 1920 when legislator Harry T. Burn voted 'aye' after a letter from his mother urged him to.
Q 11The 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore was decided by a controversial recount in which state?
Florida
George W. Bush led in Florida by only a few hundred votes when the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore ruling stopped the recount.
Q 12What is the 538-member body that formally chooses the US president called?
The Electoral College
The Electoral College never meets in one place: each state's electors gather in their own state capital to cast their votes.
Q 13Which 1984 Democratic presidential nominee carried only his home state, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia?
Walter Mondale
Q 21Which candidate's 'Daisy' ad showed a girl counting petals before a nuclear blast?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign aired 'Daisy' once, on September 7, 1964, implying that Barry Goldwater might start a nuclear war; the ad never named him.
Q 22Which Connecticut senator became Al Gore's running mate in 2000?
Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman lost the 2006 Democratic primary for his Senate seat but kept it anyway, winning re-election as an independent.
Q 23Which segregationist governor carried five Southern states as a third-party presidential candidate in 1968?
George Wallace
George Wallace had stood in a University of Alabama doorway in 1963 to try to stop two Black students from enrolling.
Walter Mondale told the 1984 convention he would raise taxes, adding that his rival would too but wouldn't say so.
Q 14Who is the youngest person ever elected US president, winning office at the age of 43?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy won at 43; Theodore Roosevelt became president at 42, but through succession after McKinley's assassination, not by election.
Q 15"Yes We Can" was the campaign slogan of which presidential candidate?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama's 'Yes We Can' echoes 'Sí, se puede', the United Farm Workers' rallying cry that many credit to Dolores Huerta.
Q 16Which candidate's 18.9% in 1992 was the best non-major-party showing since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912?
Ross Perot
Ross Perot quit the race in July 1992, then jumped back in that October and still won about 19% of the vote.
Q 17What are competitive states that either party could win in a presidential election called?
Swing states
Swing states draw most campaign visits and ads, because winner-take-all rules hand the narrow winner every one of their electors.
Q 18Which president was photographed holding a newspaper wrongly declaring Dewey had beaten him?
Harry S. Truman
The Chicago Daily Tribune, short of composing staff during a strike, printed 'DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN' early, and Harry S. Truman proudly held it up at St. Louis Union Station.
Q 19Who was the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major party?
Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Ferraro was a go-for-broke pick by a Democratic ticket trailing far behind in the polls, and her selection injected excitement into the race.
Q 20Which Republican won the presidency in 1888 despite losing the popular vote to the Democratic incumbent?
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote by about 90,000 but won the presidency by carrying New York and Indiana.
Q 24Which 1980 presidential candidate used the slogan 'Let's Make America Great Again', decades before Donald Trump?
Ronald Reagan
In his 1980 acceptance speech Ronald Reagan called for a crusade to make America great again, and in the campaign's last debate he asked voters if they were better off than four years before.
Q 25Which constitutional requirement bars Arnold Schwarzenegger from running for president?
Being a natural-born citizen
Being a natural-born citizen is required, and a 2003 amendment proposal to let long-naturalized citizens run was widely seen as aimed at Schwarzenegger.
Q 26Which vice president set a new record for Senate tie-breaking votes, reaching 33 by 2024?
Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris cast 33 tie-breaking votes, passing John C. Calhoun's 31 in December 2023, mostly while presiding over a 50-50 Senate; they included the votes that passed the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Q 27Which Kansas senator won the 1996 Republican presidential nomination but lost to the incumbent?
Bob Dole
Bob Dole gave up his Senate seat and his post as majority leader in June 1996 to campaign full time.
Q 28Which Democrat was his party's presidential nominee in both 1952 and 1956, losing each time?
Adlai Stevenson
Adlai Stevenson was photographed in 1952 with a hole in the sole of his shoe, and the picture won a Pulitzer Prize.
Q 29Who was the first sitting president to lose a re-election bid in the 20th century?
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft carried only Utah and Vermont in 1912, after Theodore Roosevelt ran against him and split the Republican vote.
Q 30Before George H. W. Bush in 1988, who was the last sitting vice president to be elected president?
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren won in 1836 as Andrew Jackson's chosen successor, then lost re-election in 1840 amid the depression that followed the Panic of 1837.