What is a political party?

A political party is an organization of people who share similar political beliefs and goals and who work together to elect candidates to public office and shape government policy. Political parties are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. The framers were generally skeptical of parties, which they often called factions, fearing that organized political groups would undermine national unity. George Washington warned against the dangers of party in his Farewell Address in 1796.

Despite these warnings, parties emerged almost immediately in American politics. By the late 1790s, the Federalists (led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams) and the Democratic-Republicans (led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison) had formed and were competing for control of the government. The Federalists faded after their opposition to the War of 1812, leaving the Democratic-Republicans dominant during the Era of Good Feelings. The party system reorganized in the late 1820s into what became the modern Democratic Party (built around Andrew Jackson) and the Whig Party. The Whigs collapsed in the 1850s over the slavery issue, and the new Republican Party emerged in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery. The Republican-Democratic competition has shaped American politics ever since.

Political parties perform several functions in a democracy. They recruit candidates for office, run campaigns, organize voters around shared positions, develop platforms outlining policy commitments, mobilize voters on election day, organize legislative coalitions in Congress and state legislatures, and provide accountability by giving voters a way to evaluate the record of one team versus another. Modern parties also raise large sums of money for campaigns, train volunteers, and conduct outreach to specific groups of voters.

Parties operate at multiple levels in the United States. The two major parties have national committees (the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee), state party committees in each state, and local party organizations at the county or precinct level. The two major parties are also distinct from third parties, which include the Libertarian Party, Green Party, and others. Third parties have rarely won major elections in the United States but have sometimes influenced the outcome of close races and the policy positions of the two major parties. The American two-party system reflects features of U.S. election rules, particularly the use of single-member, plurality-winner districts in most legislative elections, which tends to produce two dominant parties.