List of Republican Party presidential primaries


have been held in the United States since 1912 to nominate the Republican presidential candidate.

1912

This was the first time that candidates were chosen through primaries. President William Taft ran to become the nominee and faced the opposition of former President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt won most of the states and received more than half of the popular vote. He even defeated Taft in his home state of Ohio. However, Taft received more delegates than Roosevelt and thus was nominated during the convention. Roosevelt founded a new party, the Progressive Party, and challenged Taft and the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson in the general election. Wilson won the election, gaining a large majority in the Electoral College and winning 42% of the popular vote, while Roosevelt won 27% and Taft 23%.
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Pennsylvania Governor Martin Brumbaugh, Senator Albert Cummins of Iowa and former Vice President Charles Fairbanks were the main candidates. Henry Ford and former President Theodore Roosevelt were also candidates. However Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Charles Hughes won the nomination on the third ballot at the convention. Hughes lost the general election to President Wilson.
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Governor Hiram Johnson of California and Former Chief of Staff of the United States Army Leonard Wood were the main candidates. However Senator Warren Harding of Ohio managed to win the nomination on the tenth ballot at the convention. Harding easily won the election against Democratic candidate James Cox.
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Republican incumbent President Calvin Coolidge ran for election to a full term, and faced no major opposition in the primaries.
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faced no major opposition in the primaries and easily won the general election against Al Smith.
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As the year 1932 began, the Republican Party believed Hoover's protectionism and aggressive fiscal policies would solve the depression. Former Senator Joseph France of Maryland was the major opponent of incumbent President Hoover and won the most states. Despite France's success in the primaries, President Herbert Hoover controlled the party and had little trouble securing a re-nomination. Soon afterwards Hoover lost the election to Democratic nominee Franklin Roosevelt.
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Following the landslide defeat of incumbent president Herbert Hoover by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Republican Party sought its first nominee to attempt to unseat the largely popular incumbent president. There were six candidates in total, but four of them were seen as "favorite son" candidates who only won their respective home states: Earl Warren of California, Frank Knox of Illinois, Stephen A. Day of Ohio, and Warren E. Green of South Dakota. Thus, the only two serious candidates were Governors William Borah of Idaho and Alfred "Alf" Landon of Kansas. Although Borah won more states' primaries, more total popular votes, and a larger percentage overall, Landon managed to use his connections to the party machinery to secure a majority of necessary delegates at the convention, and became the nominee. Knox was chosen as Landon's running mate.
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After Landon's even larger landslide loss to Roosevelt in 1936, the party sought out more moderate candidates for the nomination in 1940. There were twice as many candidates as in 1936, with 12, including former President Hoover. However, only three won any primaries: Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary of Oregon, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, and Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey of New York. Dewey won 5 states, while McNary and Taft won only one state each. However, later on in the primaries, businessman Wendell Willkie began to gain momentum due to his lack of political experience and for being a new face in the political scene. He ultimately managed to win a majority of necessary delegates at the convention, primarily when the delegates of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York switched their allegiances to vote for Willkie. McNary was ultimately chosen as Willkie's running mate.
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Willkie had come closer to defeating Roosevelt than Hoover or Landon, but still lost substantially. At this point, a divide appeared in the Republican Party between the moderates and the conservatives, each claiming that only a candidate with their beliefs had a chance at beating Roosevelt as he ran for an unprecedented fourth term. The 1944 primaries saw 10 major candidates, which included former candidates Earl Warren and Thomas Dewey, as well as the previous nominee Wendell Willkie. One prominent candidate was General Douglas MacArthur, who was popular among conservatives and won 2 states and the most total popular votes and vote percentage, but was unable to campaign effectively or attend the convention due to still planning Allied strategies in the midst of World War II. Thus, the conservative support shifted from Robert Taft in the previous election to Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, while the moderates supported Governor Dewey of New York, who won the most primaries with 3. Dewey ultimately secured the nomination at the convention, and selected Bricker as his running mate.
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Although Dewey had also lost to Roosevelt in 1944, Roosevelt had died in office shortly thereafter, and incumbent President Harry S. Truman was widely unpopular and thus seen as easy to beat. The 1948 primaries set the record for the highest number of candidates in the history of the Republican Party, with 15 total; a record it held for nearly 70 years until 2016 surpassed it. Among them were repeat candidates Douglas MacArthur, Senator Robert Taft, Governor Earl Warren, Businessman Riley A. Bender of Illinois, and the previous nominee Thomas Dewey. Although Warren claimed the highest vote total with his sole win in California, the top two candidates were moderate Republican Dewey and former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, a more liberal Republican who had previously run in 1940 and 1944. Stassen won more primaries with 4 to Dewey's 2, but after Stassen was perceived as losing the first-ever broadcast presidential debate with Dewey, Dewey went on to easily claim the nomination for a second consecutive time. Warren was chosen as Dewey's running mate.
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Having suffered five consecutive losses, the Republican Party sought out a candidate who could appeal to voters all across the political spectrum, possibly through name recognition. Once more, a divide emerged between the conservative wing of the party and the liberal wing. The conservatives were once again represented by Senator Robert Taft, while the liberals were represented by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Other candidates included Governor Earl Warren of California and former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota. Taft narrowly won more victories than Eisenhower, with 6 primaries to Eisenhower's 5. The race was neck-and-neck by the beginning of the convention, but Eisenhower's supporters accused Taft of corruption by convincing state party leaders in Texas and Georgia to give him all their delegates, rather than award them proportionately and therefore give some to Eisenhower. The delegates at the convention ultimately agreed and voted to support the "Fair Play" amendment 685–548, which convicted Taft of such and gave the delegates in question to Eisenhower by default, thus earning Eisenhower the nomination. Eisenhower then went on to win the general election in a landslide, finally putting a Republican president in the White House for the first time since 1933.
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As a popular incumbent, with a strong economy and recent foreign policy victories including the Korean War, Eisenhower easily won his party's primaries in 1956 with little opposition, namely former candidate John Bricker from 1944, as well as Joe Foss of South Dakota and S.C. Arnold of Montana.
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With President Eisenhower term-limited from office, the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination was Vice President Richard Nixon, who was also very popular in his own right. He won 11 primaries, while his only two major challengers, Governor Cecil Underwood of West Virginia and State Senator James M. Lloyd of South Dakota, only won their respective home states. Thus, Nixon easily won the nomination, and selected longtime Eisenhower ally Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his running mate.
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Despite Nixon's continuing popularity, and the closeness by which he lost in 1960, he refused to seek the Republican Party's nomination in 1964, primarily due to his previous loss as well as another equally stinging loss in the 1962 California gubernatorial race. Thus, the party was left without a clear frontrunner. For the first time, the divide between conservatives and moderates allowed the conservative candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona to win the nomination despite his unpopular, strong conservative views. His biggest challengers were Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., with 3 primary wins, and Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York with 2; however, despite both candidates' strong alliances in the liberal wing of the party, both were far surpassed by Goldwater's surprising 7 victories. Other candidates included Governor James A. Rhodes of Ohio, Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania, and Congressman John W. Byrnes of Wisconsin, who each won their own respective home states and nothing else. Also among the candidates was Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who became the first major female candidate for a major party's presidential nomination in American history.
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