Party Chairman Michael Steele Senate Leader Mitch McConnell
Headquarters 310 First Street SE
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The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political
parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. It is often
called the Grand Old Party or the GOP. Founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, in
1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican
Party quickly surpassed the Whig Party as the principal opposition to the
Democratic Party. It first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham
Lincoln to the presidency and presided over the American Civil War and
Reconstruction. Today, the party supports a conservative and/or center-right
platform, with further foundations in supply-side fiscal policies and social
conservatism.
The Republican Party is currently the second largest party with 55 million registered voters as of 2004, encompassing roughly one-third of the electorate. There have been nineteen Republican Presidents. Republicans currently fill a minority of seats in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, hold a minority of state governorships, and control a minority of state legislatures. |
  Tom
Latham |
Bobby Jindal |
 Sarah
Palin |
Tim Pawlenty | J.C. Watts |
| Kay Bailey
Hutchison |
John Kasich | Mitt
Romney |
Mike Huckabee | Tommy Thompson |
| Jeb
Bush |
Mark Sanford | Alan
Keyes |
Charlie Crist | Mike Bloomberg |
| Haley Barbour |
Sam Brownback | Connie
Mack III |
Tom Ridge | Condoleezza Rice |
| Newt Gingrich |
Rudy Giuliani | John
McCain |
Colin Powell | Ron Paul |