US Political Parties
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50 free US Political Parties trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Constitution never mentions political parties, yet they have shaped nearly every American election. Rival camps formed inside the very first cabinet, and the names, mascots and loyalties have been changing ever since. This quiz covers the history and the civics side by side: the early parties and the people who built them, the third-party revolts that upended elections, the nicknames and symbols, and the vocabulary of primaries, conventions and Congress that turns up in any American government class. It is written for civics and US history students, teachers looking for a review round, and anyone who follows politics. Every question comes with a short explanation, so a wrong answer teaches something too.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which president used his 1796 Farewell Address to warn Americans about the dangers of political parties?
George Washington
George Washington issued the address as a newspaper letter, not a speech, and warned that party rivalry could end in the absolute power of one man.
Q 02Which animal became the Democratic Party's mascot after opponents used it to mock an 1828 candidate?
Donkey
The donkey started as ridicule: enemies of the party's candidate called him a jackass, and decades later newspaper cartoons turned the animal into a lasting emblem.
Q 03What nickname did Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party earn during his 1912 run for president?
Bull Moose
The Bull Moose name came from Roosevelt's boast that he felt as strong as one. He won 88 electoral votes, eleven times the sitting president's total.
Q 04What practice of drawing oddly shaped districts to favor one party is named after an 1812 Massachusetts governor?
Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering blends Governor Elbridge Gerry's name with salamander, the creature one of his contorted Boston-area districts was said to resemble.
Q 05What title, borrowed from British hunting, goes to the party official who keeps lawmakers voting together?
Whip
Whip comes from the whipper-in, the hunt assistant who keeps hounds from straying from the pack; lawmakers were being called that by 1772.
Q 06What do the letters GOP, the Republicans' long-standing nickname, stand for?
Grand Old Party
Grand Old Party grew out of an 1875 tribute in Congress to "this gallant old party", made when the Republicans were barely two decades old.
Q 07Which Texas billionaire won nearly 19 percent of the 1992 presidential vote without belonging to any party?
Ross Perot
Ross Perot took 18.9 percent of the popular vote yet not one electoral vote, the best showing outside the two big parties since 1912.
Q 08Which color has marked Republican-won states on American TV election maps since the 2000 presidential race?
Red
Red was not always the Republican color: NBC's 1980 map showed that year's 44-state Republican landslide in blue.
Q 09What nickname was given to the secretive, anti-immigrant American Party that surged in the 1850s?
Know Nothings
Know Nothings earned the name because members were told to reply "I know nothing" whenever outsiders asked about the movement.
Q 10Which former Illinois congressman became the first Republican president, six years after the party's founding?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln won in 1860; the party's first nominee, John C. Frémont, had lost to James Buchanan four years earlier.
Q 11Which animal first stood for the Republican vote in an 1874 Harper's Weekly cartoon about a third-term scare?
Elephant
The elephant appeared among cartoon animals stampeding in panic, a jab at rumors that President Grant wanted a third term.
Q 12Which Treasury Secretary's plan for a national bank helped turn America's first cabinet into two rival parties?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton's allies became the country's first party, while his critics rallied behind the Secretary of State and a Virginia congressman.
Q 13Whose 1800 victory over John Adams brought the first peaceful transfer of power between rival American parties?
Thomas Jefferson
Q 21Which type of primary election lets only voters registered with a party choose that party's nominee?
Closed
Closed primaries shut out voters who are not registered party members; in an open primary, by contrast, any voter may take part.
Q 22What do voters cast when they choose one party's candidates for every office on a general election ballot?
A straight ticket
A straight ticket can be cast in some states by checking a single box, an option sometimes known as a master lever.
Q 23What label is given to a minor-party candidate blamed for costing a major candidate the election?
Spoiler
A spoiler changes who wins simply by taking part, a risk built into plurality voting, where like-minded candidates dilute each other's support.
Thomas Jefferson's win is sometimes called the Revolution of 1800, and it opened a generation of rule by his Democratic-Republican Party.
Q 14Which party of President John Adams was ruined by its Hartford Convention during the War of 1812?
Federalists
Federalists from New England met at Hartford to air wartime grievances and even discussed secession, and the taint of disloyalty destroyed them as a political force.
Q 15Which Tennessee war hero nicknamed Old Hickory became the first Democratic president in 1829?
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson earned the nickname for his toughness on a hard march home to Nashville; his supporters' movement grew into the Democratic Party.
Q 16Which party sent William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor to the White House before collapsing over slavery?
The Whigs
The Whigs saw both men die in office, Harrison after only a month in 1841 and Taylor in 1850.
Q 17Which 1854 law, opening western territories to slavery by popular vote, sparked the founding of the Republican Party?
Kansas–Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act let settlers decide on slavery where an earlier compromise had barred it, and outraged Northerners formed a new party within months.
Q 18Which Harper's Weekly cartoonist of the 1870s popularized the animal mascots of both major American parties?
Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast also drew what is generally seen as the first modern Santa Claus, and his cartoons helped bring down New York's Boss Tweed.
Q 19What term describes the in-person party meetings, famously held in Iowa, that help choose presidential nominees?
Caucuses
Caucuses carry an American name of uncertain origin; a Boston newspaper was already describing such a club in 1763.
Q 20What carpentry term describes a single policy position within the platform a party adopts at its convention?
Plank
A plank is one board of the platform, a metaphor borrowed from the wooden stage a speaker stands on.
Q 24What term, also called a battleground, describes a place on the electoral map either major party could win?
Swing state
A swing state gets far more campaign visits and television advertising, because candidates gain little by courting places with a clear favorite.
Q 25What name is given to the day in a presidential primary season when the greatest number of states vote?
Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday has been a journalists' phrase since at least 1976; in 2008, 24 states crowded onto a single February date.
Q 26Which nickname covers Democratic governors and lawmakers seated automatically at the party's national convention?
Superdelegates
Superdelegates date from a 1982 commission that set aside 550 unpledged seats for party officials, to vote alongside the pledged delegates chosen by voters.
Q 27Which state's law requires its presidential primary to be held at least seven days before any other state's?
New Hampshire
New Hampshire began the first-primary tradition in 1920, and its law lets the secretary of state move the date to stay ahead of any rival.
Q 28What term describes one party holding the White House while the other controls at least one chamber of Congress?
Divided government
Divided government was rare early in the 19th century; its defenders argue it makes each side police the other and limits spending.
Q 29Which Wall Street stockbroker became the first woman to run for president, as the Equal Rights Party's 1872 nominee?
Victoria Woodhull
Victoria Woodhull's running mate was Frederick Douglass, who was nominated without his knowledge and took no part in the convention.
Q 30Which president, who left office in 1853, was the last who was neither a Democrat nor a Republican?
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore took over when Zachary Taylor died in 1850, and his own party denied him its nomination two years later.