Q 01/05

Opponents mocked which 1828 candidate with an insult that gave the Democratic Party its donkey mascot?

A) John Quincy Adams

B) Andrew Jackson

C) Henry Clay

D) James Monroe

Answer · why

B) Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson's enemies twisted his surname into 'jackass', and decades later magazine cartoons turned the donkey into the party's lasting mascot.

Q 02/05

Which Harper's Weekly cartoonist popularized both the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant?

A) Thomas Nast

B) Joseph Keppler

C) Charles Dana Gibson

D) Rube Goldberg

Answer · why

A) Thomas Nast

Thomas Nast also gave America its modern picture of Santa Claus, first drawing him for the magazine in the middle of the Civil War.

Q 03/05

Which color has marked Democratic states on TV election maps since the networks all adopted one scheme in 2000?

A) Red

B) Green

C) Blue

D) Yellow

Answer · why

C) Blue

Blue was far from fixed before then: networks swapped schemes for decades, and in 1980 NBC colored a 44-state Republican landslide blue.

Q 04/05

Which president won four straight elections as a Democrat, prompting the two-term limit amendment?

A) Grover Cleveland

B) Woodrow Wilson

C) Dwight D. Eisenhower

D) Franklin Roosevelt

Answer · why

D) Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt remains the only president elected to a third and fourth term; the Twenty-second Amendment closed that door for good in 1951.

Q 05/05

Which president won a shock 1948 victory for Democrats after a newspaper had already printed news of his defeat?

A) Harry S. Truman

B) Franklin Roosevelt

C) John F. Kennedy

D) Herbert Hoover

Answer · why

A) Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman won even though his party had split three ways, with breakaway tickets on both his left and his right drawing off voters.