The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is a right-wing to far-right political party in the United States. It emerged as the main rival of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, and the two parties have dominated American politics since then.
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery into American territories. It rapidly gained support in the North, drawing in former Whigs, Free Soilers, and former Know Nothings. Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 as president led to the secession of Southern states and the outbreak of the American Civil War. Under Lincoln and a Republican-controlled Congress, the party led efforts to preserve the Union, defeat the Confederacy, and abolish slavery. During the Reconstruction era, Republicans sought to extend civil rights protections to freedmen, but by the late 1870s, the party shifted its focus toward business interests and industrial expansion. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it dominated national politics, promoting protective tariffs, infrastructure development, and laissez-faire economic policies, while navigating internal divisions between progressive and conservative factions. The party's support declined during the Great Depression, as the New Deal coalition reshaped American politics. Republicans returned to national power with the 1952 election of Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose moderate conservatism reflected a pragmatic acceptance of many New Deal-era programs.
Following the civil rights era, the Republican Party's use of the Southern strategy appealed to many white voters disaffected by Democratic support for civil rights, and de facto flipping the two parties stances. The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as president realigned national politics, consolidating a coalition of free market advocates, social conservatives and foreign policy hawks under the Republican banner. Since 2009, a shift toward right-wing populism culminated in the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president, whose leadership style and political agenda—often referred to as Trumpism—reshaped the party's identity and political platform.
The modern Republican Party is primarily right-wing populist and neo-nationalist with smaller conservative, Christian right, and libertarian factions, all of which have greatly diminished in influence since 2016. Its ideology has since largely shifted towards illiberalism, favoring strong presidential power and a statist government to enforce conservative cultural values. This includes broad opposition to abortion, LGBT rights, immigration, and gun control. On economic policy, it supports mercantilism while opposing labor unions. During the 20th and early 21st centuries, it cooperated internationally with conservative parties. Since the 2020s it has aligned with global far-right parties, and ethnic nationalist beliefs have become influential among factions, including support for remigration.
History
1850s to 1930s
In 1854, the Republican Party began as an antislavery party to combat the expansion of slavery into western territories after the passing of the Kansas–Nebraska Act by the Democrats under Stephan Douglas. The party was formed in the Northern and Border states, but not the South. It rapidly gained support in the North, drawing in former Whigs and Free Soil Democrats. Under the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln it led the successful war effort against the Confederacy.
By 1865 it encompassed northern Protestants, factory workers, professionals, businessmen, prosperous farmers, and also black former slaves. It also included a minority of white Southerners who had opposed the Confederacy—men ridiculed by Democrats as "Scalawags". The great majority of white southerners were Democrats, as were the great majority of Irish Catholics and German Catholics. While both parties adopted pro-business policies in the 19th century, the early GOP was distinguished by its support for the national banking system, the gold standard, railroads, and high tariffs.
The Republican Party largely dominated the national political scene until 1932. However it split in 1912, as former president Theodore Roosevelt formed the liberal Progressive Party to oppose the conservatives under William Howard Taft. The split allowed Democrats under Woodrow Wilson to win in 1912. The GOP lost its congressional majorities during the Great Depression (1929–1940). Under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S Truman, the Democrats formed a winning New Deal coalition that was dominant from 1932 through 1952.
Shift rightward
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Southern strategy, the party's core base shifted with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican in presidential politics and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic. White voters increasingly identified with the Republican Party after the 1960s. Following the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Republican Party opposed abortion in its party platform and grew its support among evangelicals. The Republican Party won five of the six presidential elections from 1968 to 1988. Two-term President Ronald Reagan, who held office from 1981 to 1989, was a transformative party leader. His conservative policies called for reduced social government spending and regulation, increased military spending, lower taxes, and a strong anti-Soviet foreign policy. Reagan's influence upon the party persisted into the 21st century.
Since the 1990s, the party's support has chiefly come from the South, the Great Plains, the Mountain States, and rural areas in the North.
Trump era
In the 2016 presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The result was unexpected; polls leading up to the election showed Clinton leading the race. Trump's victory was fueled by narrow victories in three states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—that had been part of the Democratic blue wall for decades. It was attributed to strong support amongst working-class white voters, who felt dismissed and disrespected by the political establishment. Trump became popular with them by abandoning Republican establishment orthodoxy in favor of a broader nationalist message. His election accelerated the Republican Party's shift towards right-wing populism and resulted in decreasing influence among its conservative factions.
After the 2016 elections, Republicans maintained their majority in the Senate, the House, and governorships, and wielded newly acquired executive power with Trump's election. The Republican Party controlled 69 of 99 state legislative chambers in 2017, the most it had held in history. The Party also held 33 governorships, the most it had held since 1922. The party had total control of government in 25 states, the most since 1952. The opposing Democratic Party held full control of only five states in 2017. In the 2018 elections, Republicans lost control of the House, but strengthened their hold on the Senate.
Over the course of his presidency, Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede the race, claiming widespread electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results. On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters following a rally at which Trump spoke. After the attack, the House impeached Trump for a second time on the charge of incitement of insurrection, making him the only federal officeholder to be impeached twice; however, he was not removed from office. The Senate acquitted him in February 2021, after he had already left office. Following the 2020 election, election denial became increasingly mainstream in the party, with the majority of Republican candidates in 2022 being election deniers. The party also made efforts to restrict voting based on false claims of fraud.
By the early 2020s, the Republican Party had largely shifted towards illiberalism, with a 2020 study conducted by the V-Dem Institute concluding that it was more ideologically extreme than France's National Rally and similar in its views, rhetoric, actions and practices to authoritarian or far-right parties such as Law and Justice in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary, Justice and Development in Turkey, Bharatiya Janata Party in India, and Alternative for Germany. The United States has experienced substantial democratic backsliding under the two presidencies of Donald Trump, with a majority of political scientists and several democracy indices classifying the country as either having transitioned or being in a phase of transition from a liberal democracy to an illiberal democracy or hybrid regime since 2016.
Trump easily won the nomination to be the party's candidate again in 2024, marking the third straight election of him being the GOP nominee. Trump achieved victory against Vice President Kamala Harris. He won both the electoral college and a plurality of the popular vote, becoming the first Republican to do so since George W. Bush in 2004, and improving his vote share among working class voters, particularly among young men, those without college degrees, and Hispanic voters.
Current status
As of 2026, the GOP holds the presidency, and majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, giving them a federal government trifecta. It also holds 26 state governorships, 28 state legislatures, and 23 state government trifectas. Six of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents. There have been 19 Republicans who have served as president, the most from any one political party; the most recent being current president Donald Trump, who became the 47th president on January 20, 2025. Trump also served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.
During Trump's second term, the GOP has been partially divided on a number of key policies, including tariffs and support for Ukraine against Russia.
Name and symbols
The Republican Party's founding members chose its name as homage to the values of republicanism promoted by the Democratic-Republican Party, which its founder, Thomas Jefferson, called the "Republican Party". The idea for the name came from an editorial by the party's leading publicist, Horace Greeley, who called for "some simple name like 'Republican' [that] would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery". The name was selected as it "connected voters with the original political organization of Thomas Jefferson in the 1790s, the Democratic-Republican Party". "Republican" has a variety of meanings around the world, and the Republican Party has evolved such that the meanings no longer always align.
The term "Grand Old Party" is a traditional nickname for the Republican Party, and the abbreviation "GOP" is a commonly used designation. The term originated in 1875 in the Congressional Record, referring to the party associated with the successful military defense of the Union as "this gallant old party". The following year in an article in the Cincinnati Commercial, the term was modified to "grand old party". The first use of the abbreviation is dated 1884.
The traditional mascot of the party is the elephant. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on November 7, 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol. The cartoon was published during the debate over a possible run for a third term by President Ulysses S. Grant. It draws imagery and text from the Aesop fable "The Ass in the Lion's Skin", combined with rumors of animals escaping from the Central Park Zoo.
An alternate symbol of the Republican Party in states such as Indiana, New York, and Ohio is the bald eagle as opposed to the Democratic rooster or the Democratic five-pointed star. In Kentucky, the log cabin is a symbol of the Republican Party.
Traditionally the party had no consistent color identity. After the 2000 presidential election, the color red became politically associated with Republicans. During and after the election, the major broadcast networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: states won by Republican nominee George W. Bush were colored red and states won by Democratic nominee Al Gore were colored blue. Due to the weeks-long dispute over the election results, these color associations became firmly ingrained, persisting in subsequent years. Although the assignment of colors to political parties is unofficial and informal, the media has come to represent the respective political parties using these colors. The party and its candidates have also come to embrace the color red.
Contrarily, the color red tends to represent left-leaning socialist, communist, and labor political movements in many nations, while blue is linked with conservatism.
Factions
Civil War and Reconstruction era
The Radical Republicans were a major factor in the party from its inception in 1854 until the end of the Reconstruction Era in 1877. Like the moderate Republicans the radicals strongly opposed the expansion of slavery. Unlike the moderates they were hard-line abolitionists calling for the end of slavery in the South. By 1865 Both factions advocated equal rights for the freedmen. Radicals were heavily influenced by religious ideals and evangelical Christianity. Radical Republicans pressed for abolition as a major war aim and they opposed the moderate Reconstruction plans of Abraham Lincoln as both too lenient on the Confederates and not going far enough to help former slaves. After the war's end and Lincoln's assassination, the Radicals clashed with Andrew Johnson over Reconstruction policy. Radicals led efforts to establish civil rights for former slaves and fully implement emancipation, pushing the Fourteenth Amendment for statutory protections through Congress. They opposed allowing ex-Confederate officers to retake political power in the Southern U.S., and emphasized liberty, equality, and the Fifteenth Amendment which provided voting rights for the freedmen. Many later became Stalwarts, who supported machine politics.
Moderate Republicans were known for their loyal support of President Abraham Lincoln's war policies and expressed antipathy towards the more militant stances advocated by the Radical Republicans. In contrast to Radicals, Moderate Republicans were less enthusiastic on the issue of Black suffrage even while embracing civil equality and the expansive federal authority observed throughout the American Civil War. They were also skeptical of the lenient, conciliatory Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson. Members of the Moderate Republicans comprised in part of the previous Radical Republicans who became disenchanted with the alleged corruption of the latter faction. They generally opposed efforts by Radical Republicans to rebuild the Southern U.S. under an economically mobile, free-market system.
20th century
The 20th century saw the Republican party split into an Old Right and a moderate-liberal faction in the Northeast that eventually became known as Rockefeller Republicans. Opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal saw the formation of the conservative coalition. The 1950s saw fusionism of traditionalist and social conservatism and right-libertarianism, along with the rise of the First New Right to be followed in 1964 with a more populist Second New Right.
The rise of the Reagan coalition in the 1980s began what has been called the Reagan era. Reagan's rise displaced the liberal-moderate faction of the GOP and established Reagan-style conservatism as the prevailing ideological faction of the Party for the next thirty years, until the rise of the right-wing populist faction. Reagan conservatives generally supported policies that favored limited government, individualism, traditionalism, republicanism, and limited federal governmental power in relation to the states.
21st century
Republicans began the 21st century with the election of George W. Bush in the 2000 United States presidential election and saw the peak of a neoconservative faction that held significant influence over the initial American response to the September 11 attacks through the war on terror. The election of Barack Obama saw the formation of the Tea Party movement in 2009 that coincided with a global rise in right-wing populist movements from the 2010s to 2020s. The global rise in right-wing populism has been attributed to factors including economic insecurity due to financialization, a decline in organized religion, backlash to globalization, and migrant crises.
Right-wing populism became an increasingly dominant ideological faction within the GOP throughout the 2010s and helped lead to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Starting in the 1970s and accelerating in the 2000s, American right-wing interest groups invested heavily in external mobilization vehicles that led to the organizational weakening of the GOP establishment. The outsized role of conservative media, in particular Fox News, led to it being followed and trusted more by the Republican base over traditional party elites. The depletion of organizational capacity partly led to Trump's victory in the Republican primaries against the wishes of a very weak party establishment and traditional power brokers. Trump's election exacerbated internal schisms within the GOP, and saw the GOP move from a center coalition of moderates and conservatives to a solidly right-wing party hostile to liberal views and any deviations from the party line.
The Party has since faced intense factionalism. These factions are particularly apparent in the U.S. House of Representatives, where three Republican House leaders (Eric Cantor, John Boehner, and Kevin McCarthy) have been ousted since 2009. All three of the top Republican elected officials during Trump's first term (Vice President, Speaker of the House, and Senate Republican leader) were ousted or stepped down by Trump's second term.
The party's establishment conservative faction has lost all of its influence. Many conservatives critical of the Trumpist faction have also lost influence within the party, with no former Republican presidential or vice presidential nominees attending the 2024 Republican National Convention.
The victory of Trump in the 2024 presidential election saw the party increasingly shift towards Trumpism, and party criticism of Trump was described as being muted to non-existent. The New York Times described it as a "hostile takeover", and a victory of right-wing populism over the old conservative establishment. Polling found that 53% of Republican voters saw loyalty to Trump as central to their political identity and what it means to be a Republican. During Trump's second presidency, Republican members of Congress were described by political commentators and news media as largely submissive to Trump, letting him dictate policies without pushback.
Right-wing populists and Trumpists
Right-wing populism is the dominant political faction of the GOP. Sometimes referred to as the MAGA or "America First" movement, Republican populists have been described as consisting of a range of right-wing ideologies including but not limited to right-wing populism, national conservatism, neo-nationalism, mercantilism, and Trumpism. Trump has been described as one of many nationalist leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Narendra Modi of India, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Viktor Orbán of Hungary, and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
The Republican Party's right-wing populist movements emerged in concurrence with a global increase in populist movements in the 2010s and 2020s, coupled with entrenchment and increased partisanship within the party since 2010. This included the rise of the Tea Party movement, which has also been described as far-right.
Compared to other Republicans, the populist faction is more likely to oppose legal immigration, free trade, neoconservatism, and environmental protection laws. It has been described as featuring anti-intellectualism and overtly racial appeals.
In international relations, populists typically support American aid to Israel but not to Ukraine, though since 2025, a growing element is critical of aid to Israel as well. They are generally supportive of improving relations with Russia, and favor an isolationist "America First" foreign policy agenda. This faction has been described as closer to that of Vladimir Putin's Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey than Western Europe and the Anglosphere in terms of positions on international cooperation, support for an autocratic leadership style, and trust in institutions. This faction takes nationalist and irredentist views towards other countries in North America, advocating for American territorial expansion to include Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, and potential military action on Mexican soil.
The party's far-right faction includes members of the Freedom Caucus. They generally reject compromise within the party and with the Democrats, and are willing to oust fellow Republican office holders they deem to be too moderate. According to sociologist Joe Feagin, political polarization by racially extremist Republicans as well as their increased attention from conservative media has perpetuated the near extinction of moderate Republicans and created legislative paralysis at numerous government levels in the last few decades.
Conservatives
Ronald Reagan's presidential election in 1980 established Reagan-style American conservatism as the dominant ideological faction of the Republican Party until the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Traditional conservatives combine support for free-market economic policies with social conservatism and a hawkish approach to foreign policy. Other parts of the conservative movement are composed of fiscal conservatives and deficit hawks.
Conventional conservatism has been in decline across the Western world, not just the United States. In the European Union's multi-party system, right-wing populist parties and European conservative parties both received support from about a quarter of voters in the early 2020s, the highest share for right-wing populist parties since the end of World War II.
Christian right
Since the rise of the Christian right in the 1970s, the Republican Party has drawn significant support from evangelicals, Mormons, and traditionalist Catholics. The Christian right faction is characterized by strong support of socially conservative policies. Holding to right-wing interpretations of Christianity, they have varying beliefs on how it should influence law and public policy. Compared to other Republicans, the Christian right faction is more likely to oppose LGBT rights, marijuana legalization, and support significantly restricting the legality of abortion.
The Christian right is strongest in the Bible Belt, which covers most of the Southern United States. Mike Pence, Donald Trump's vice president from 2017 to 2021, was a member of the Christian right. In October 2023, a member of the faction, Louisiana representative Mike Johnson, was elected the 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
Libertarians
The Republican Party has a libertarian faction. This faction of the party is most popular in the Midwestern and Western United States. Libertarianism emerged from fusionism in the 1950s and 60s. Barry Goldwater had a substantial impact on the conservative-libertarian movement of the 1960s. Compared to other Republicans, they are more likely to favor the legalization of marijuana, LGBT rights such as same-sex marriage, gun rights, oppose mass surveillance, and support reforms to current laws surrounding civil asset forfeiture. Right-wing libertarians are strongly divided on the subject of abortion. Prominent libertarian conservatives within the Republican Party include Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Mike Lee.
Moderates
Moderates in the Republican Party are an ideologically centrist and center-right group that predominantly come from the Northeastern United States, and are typically located in swing states or blue states. Moderate Republicans are typically highly educated, affluent, fiscally conservative, socially moderate or liberal and often supported the "Never Trump" movement. Moderate Republicans differ in that some are for affirmative action, LGBT rights and same-sex marriage, legal access to abortion, gun control laws, environmental regulation and action on climate change, fewer restrictions on immigration and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. In the 21st century, a significant amount of former Republican moderates have switched to the Democratic Party, and the faction is viewed as in decline.
Notable Republicans include Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, Nevada governor Joe Lombardo, Vermont governor Phil Scott, New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte, and former Maryland governor Larry Hogan.
Political positions
The Republican Party is a neo-nationalist and right-wing populist party; until 2017, it was generally described as upholding American conservatism, with conservatives now only making up a minority of the party. Comparative politics studies by the V-Dem Institute, Polity Data Series, Global Party Survey, Protect Democracy, The Washington Post, and the Manifesto Project Database classify the party as "far-right" in an international context, as well as a majority of political scientists. Freedom House, which is generally respected in the political science field but has also received criticism for dependence on federal government funding, described "the Republicans on the right and the Democrats on the left" in its 2026 report for the United States.