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William Jennings Bryan
Born
Bryan lost in 1896, 1900 and 1908, but his "Cross of Gold" campaign absorbed the Populists and turned the Democrats from a party of limited government into one hostile to big finance. The income tax, direct election of senators and other planks he championed were enacted within two decades.
More about William Jennings Bryan2
Theodore Roosevelt
Born
The 1912 Progressive "Bull Moose" run is the strongest third-party showing in modern history: 27 per cent and second place. Its platform of social insurance, minimum wages for women and campaign finance disclosure anticipated much of the New Deal, though splitting the Republican vote also elected Wilson.
More about Theodore Roosevelt3
Eugene V. Debs
Born
Debs ran five times for the Socialist Party, winning about 6 per cent in 1912 and nearly a million votes in 1920 while in federal prison for opposing the First World War. His campaigns pressed old-age pensions and labour protections onto the agenda and became a lasting reference for free speech in wartime.
More about Eugene V. Debs4
Robert M. La Follette
Born
La Follette's 1924 Progressive campaign took nearly 17 per cent with backing from organised labour, then rare for a presidential candidate. Its platform of public ownership of utilities, protection for collective bargaining and an end to child labour fed directly into the New Deal coalition.
More about Robert M. La Follette5
Al Smith
Born
The first Catholic major-party nominee lost heavily in 1928 amid open anti-Catholic campaigning, yet Smith carried the country's twelve largest cities, which had voted Republican four years earlier. That urban, immigrant vote became a pillar of Roosevelt's coalition from 1932.
More about Al Smith6
Wendell Willkie
Born
Willkie won the 1940 Republican nomination over the party's isolationists and backed aid to Britain and the peacetime draft during the campaign. After losing he toured the Allied world and wrote One World, helping to move his party towards the internationalism that later supported the United Nations.
More about Wendell Willkie7
Strom Thurmond
Born
An influence most readers will not admire: Thurmond's 1948 States' Rights "Dixiecrat" campaign, launched against Truman's civil rights programme, carried four Deep South states. It was the first sign of the white Southern break from the Democrats, which Thurmond himself completed by switching to the Republicans in 1964.
More about Strom Thurmond8
Henry A. Wallace
Born
The former vice president's 1948 Progressive Party run won only about 2 per cent, but it campaigned in the South before integrated audiences and opposed the early Cold War line. Its weak showing helped settle the Democratic Party's anticommunist liberalism for a generation, and its civil rights stance pressed Truman to act.
More about Henry A. Wallace9
Adlai Stevenson II
Born
Stevenson lost to Eisenhower twice, in 1952 and 1956, but his speeches drew a generation of educated professionals into Democratic politics, the "amateur" reform clubs that challenged city machines. His 1956 call to stop atmospheric nuclear testing was dismissed at the time and realised in the 1963 test ban treaty.
More about Adlai Stevenson II10
Barry Goldwater
Born
Goldwater won only six states in 1964, yet his campaign handed control of the Republican Party to its conservative wing, built a national donor base of small contributors and launched Ronald Reagan with the televised speech "A Time for Choosing". His opposition to the Civil Rights Act also helped win Deep South states for the party for the first time since Reconstruction.
More about Barry Goldwater11
Eugene McCarthy
Born
McCarthy's anti-war challenge took 42 per cent against a sitting president in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, and within weeks Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the race. His student volunteers showed that an insurgent campaign could topple an incumbent's candidacy from inside the party.
More about Eugene McCarthy12
George Wallace
Born
Wallace's 1968 American Independent campaign carried five Southern states with 13.5 per cent of the vote on segregationist and law-and-order themes. Nixon's "Southern strategy" and later Republican appeals to white working-class voters drew on the coalition he exposed; Wallace later renounced segregation.
More about George Wallace13
George McGovern
Born
McGovern lost 49 states in 1972, but before running he chaired the McGovern-Fraser Commission, whose rules moved nominations from party bosses to primaries and caucuses. Both parties still pick presidential candidates through the system it created, and he was the first to win the nomination under it.
More about George McGovern14
Shirley Chisholm
Born
Chisholm's 1972 run was the first by a Black candidate, and the first by a woman, for the Democratic presidential nomination. With little money she still won 152 delegate votes at the convention, and later candidates from Jackson to Harris have cited her campaign as the precedent.
More about Shirley Chisholm15
Jesse Jackson
Born
Jackson's 1984 and 1988 Rainbow Coalition campaigns registered large numbers of new voters and won about 7 million primary votes in 1988. His bargaining forced the Democrats to adopt proportional allocation of delegates, a rule that later shaped close nomination races such as Obama's in 2008. He died in February 2026.
More about Jesse Jackson16
Ross Perot
Born
Perot took 19 per cent in 1992 with half-hour television lectures on the federal deficit, the best independent result since Roosevelt in 1912. Both parties then competed to claim deficit reduction, and his opposition to NAFTA prefigured later anti-trade politics on left and right.
More about Ross Perot17
Pat Buchanan
Born
Buchanan won 37 per cent against a sitting president in the 1992 New Hampshire primary and ran again in 1996 and 2000. His mix of trade protectionism, immigration restriction and non-intervention abroad was a minority view in his party then and is widely seen as a forerunner of its later direction.
More about Pat Buchanan18
Ralph Nader
Born
Nader's 2000 Green campaign won about 2.7 per cent nationally and 97,000 votes in Florida, which Bush carried by 537. Whether he cost Gore the presidency is still argued, but the result hardened Democratic hostility to third parties and fuelled interest in ranked-choice voting as a remedy for spoilers.
More about Ralph Nader19
Howard Dean
Born
Dean's 2004 primary campaign collapsed in Iowa, but it pioneered online small-donor fundraising and organising through Meetup and blogs. As party chair afterwards he ran the 50-state strategy that funded organisers in Republican-leaning states, credited by many with Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008.
More about Howard Dean20
Ron Paul
Born
Paul's 2008 and 2012 Republican primary runs set one-day online fundraising records with "money bombs" and built a young libertarian following. They left a lasting faction, visible in Federal Reserve audit bills, opposition to foreign wars and the careers of allies including his son, Senator Rand Paul.
More about Ron Paul21
Bernie Sanders
Born
The Vermont senator lost the Democratic nominations of 2016 and 2020 but proved a campaign could be funded almost entirely by small online donations. Ideas he pushed into the mainstream, such as a 15 dollar minimum wage and Medicare for All, became tests for later Democratic candidates, and his 2016 bid led the party to cut the role of superdelegates.
More about Bernie Sanders
