| Year | Winner | Party | Main opponents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1789 | George Washington | none | John Adams (none); other electors' scattered votes |
| 1792 | George Washington | none | John Adams (Federalist); George Clinton (Democratic-Republican) |
| 1796 | John Adams | Federalist | Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican); Thomas Pinckney (Federalist); Aaron Burr (Democratic-Republican) |
| 1800 | Thomas Jefferson | Democratic-Republican | John Adams (Federalist); Aaron Burr (Democratic-Republican); Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (Federalist) |
| 1804 | Thomas Jefferson | Democratic-Republican | Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (Federalist) |
| 1808 | James Madison | Democratic-Republican | Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (Federalist); George Clinton (Democratic-Republican) |
| 1812 | James Madison | Democratic-Republican | DeWitt Clinton (Democratic-Republican dissidents with Federalist support) |
| 1816 | James Monroe | Democratic-Republican | Rufus King (Federalist) |
| 1820 | James Monroe | Democratic-Republican | No national opponent; John Quincy Adams received one electoral vote |
| 1824 | John Quincy Adams | Democratic-Republican | Andrew Jackson (Democratic-Republican); William H. Crawford (Democratic-Republican); Henry Clay (Democratic-Republican) |
| 1828 | Andrew Jackson | Democratic | John Quincy Adams (National Republican) |
| 1832 | Andrew Jackson | Democratic | Henry Clay (National Republican); William Wirt (Anti-Masonic); John Floyd (Nullifier) |
| 1836 | Martin Van Buren | Democratic | William Henry Harrison (Whig); Hugh Lawson White (Whig); Daniel Webster (Whig); Willie P. Mangum (Whig) |
| 1840 | William Henry Harrison | Whig | Martin Van Buren (Democratic); James G. Birney (Liberty) |
| 1844 | James K. Polk | Democratic | Henry Clay (Whig); James G. Birney (Liberty) |
| 1848 | Zachary Taylor | Whig | Lewis Cass (Democratic); Martin Van Buren (Free Soil) |
| 1852 | Franklin Pierce | Democratic | Winfield Scott (Whig); John P. Hale (Free Soil) |
| 1856 | James Buchanan | Democratic | John C. Frémont (Republican); Millard Fillmore (American, or Know Nothing) |
| 1860 | Abraham Lincoln | Republican | Stephen A. Douglas (Northern Democratic); John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democratic); John Bell (Constitutional Union) |
| 1864 | Abraham Lincoln | Republican (National Union) | George B. McClellan (Democratic) |
| 1868 | Ulysses S. Grant | Republican | Horatio Seymour (Democratic) |
| 1872 | Ulysses S. Grant | Republican | Horace Greeley (Liberal Republican and Democratic) |
| 1876 | Rutherford B. Hayes | Republican | Samuel J. Tilden (Democratic) |
| 1880 | James A. Garfield | Republican | Winfield Scott Hancock (Democratic); James B. Weaver (Greenback) |
| 1884 | Grover Cleveland | Democratic | James G. Blaine (Republican); Benjamin Butler (Greenback and Anti-Monopoly); John St. John (Prohibition) |
| 1888 | Benjamin Harrison | Republican | Grover Cleveland (Democratic) |
| 1892 | Grover Cleveland | Democratic | Benjamin Harrison (Republican); James B. Weaver (People's, or Populist) |
| 1896 | William McKinley | Republican | William Jennings Bryan (Democratic and People's) |
| 1900 | William McKinley | Republican | William Jennings Bryan (Democratic and People's) |
| 1904 | Theodore Roosevelt | Republican | Alton B. Parker (Democratic); Eugene V. Debs (Socialist) |
| 1908 | William Howard Taft | Republican | William Jennings Bryan (Democratic); Eugene V. Debs (Socialist) |
| 1912 | Woodrow Wilson | Democratic | Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive); William Howard Taft (Republican); Eugene V. Debs (Socialist) |
| 1916 | Woodrow Wilson | Democratic | Charles Evans Hughes (Republican) |
| 1920 | Warren G. Harding | Republican | James M. Cox (Democratic); Eugene V. Debs (Socialist) |
| 1924 | Calvin Coolidge | Republican | John W. Davis (Democratic); Robert M. La Follette (Progressive) |
| 1928 | Herbert Hoover | Republican | Al Smith (Democratic) |
| 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Democratic | Herbert Hoover (Republican); Norman Thomas (Socialist) |
| 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Democratic | Alf Landon (Republican); William Lemke (Union) |
| 1940 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Democratic | Wendell Willkie (Republican) |
| 1944 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Democratic | Thomas E. Dewey (Republican) |
| 1948 | Harry S. Truman | Democratic | Thomas E. Dewey (Republican); Strom Thurmond (States' Rights Democratic); Henry A. Wallace (Progressive) |
| 1952 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | Republican | Adlai Stevenson (Democratic) |
| 1956 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | Republican | Adlai Stevenson (Democratic) |
| 1960 | John F. Kennedy | Democratic | Richard Nixon (Republican) |
| 1964 | Lyndon B. Johnson | Democratic | Barry Goldwater (Republican) |
| 1968 | Richard Nixon | Republican | Hubert Humphrey (Democratic); George Wallace (American Independent) |
| 1972 | Richard Nixon | Republican | George McGovern (Democratic) |
| 1976 | Jimmy Carter | Democratic | Gerald Ford (Republican) |
| 1980 | Ronald Reagan | Republican | Jimmy Carter (Democratic); John B. Anderson (independent) |
| 1984 | Ronald Reagan | Republican | Walter Mondale (Democratic) |
| 1988 | George H. W. Bush | Republican | Michael Dukakis (Democratic) |
| 1992 | Bill Clinton | Democratic | George H. W. Bush (Republican); Ross Perot (independent) |
| 1996 | Bill Clinton | Democratic | Bob Dole (Republican); Ross Perot (Reform) |
| 2000 | George W. Bush | Republican | Al Gore (Democratic); Ralph Nader (Green) |
| 2004 | George W. Bush | Republican | John Kerry (Democratic) |
| 2008 | Barack Obama | Democratic | John McCain (Republican) |
| 2012 | Barack Obama | Democratic | Mitt Romney (Republican) |
| 2016 | Donald Trump | Republican | Hillary Clinton (Democratic); Gary Johnson (Libertarian); Jill Stein (Green) |
| 2020 | Joe Biden | Democratic | Donald Trump (Republican) |
| 2024 | Donald Trump | Republican | Kamala Harris (Democratic) |
One page for each of the 60 US presidential elections from 1789 to 2024. Each page shows the campaign literature of every major candidate side by side: the winner, the losers and the significant third parties. Posters, broadsides, ribbons, badges, banners, cartoons, pamphlets, songsters, newspaper pages and advertisements are shown as they were printed, and each carries the same collection entry and the same technique tags as every other object in the archive.
The same standard for every side
Every election page has the same sections in the same order: a short context paragraph, then the literature of each candidate, then the techniques visible, then the sources. Each candidate gets the same amount of space, and the same technique definitions are applied to every candidate, party and era. A page records what was printed and what it was designed to do. It does not say who deserved to win.
Campaign material includes smears, racist and nativist caricature and personal abuse, from every party. It is shown as it was printed, with the historical context and a short content note, never cropped or softened.
What the pages draw on
Items from 1789 to the early 1920s are public domain by age. Later material is hosted only where the holding institution states that it is public domain or openly licensed, and is otherwise cited with a link. The main holdings are the Library of Congress (Prints and Photographs, American Political Ephemera, broadsides), the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (open access), the National Archives and the Internet Archive.
How this connects to the rest of the archive
Each US administration's page links to the campaign literature of the elections that put its president in office. Each object is tagged with the administration in power on the date it was printed, or none where the issuer held no office, and with its election.
All elections
The table below lists all 60. A year becomes a link when its page is added; the pages are being built in date order.