1828 United States presidential election

Andrew Jackson won 56 percent of the vote and beat John Quincy Adams 178 electoral votes to 83, reversing the 1824 contest that Jackson insisted a "corrupt bargain" had taken from him. The realignment lies in the coalition behind him. Jackson's backers, including the old Crawford Republicans that Martin Van Buren of New York shepherded and the supporters of John C. Calhoun, became the party soon known as the Democrats, while Adams led the National Republicans. The one-party calm of the previous decade gave way to two organized camps competing for a mass electorate. Read this entry to see where the Democratic Party's first coalition came from.