First contested and party-based presidential election
- When
- November 4 – December 7, 1796
- Where
- United States presidential election
With Washington refusing a third term, the 1796 election became the first contested U.S. presidential election and the first in which parties competed for the presidency.
Presidential elections were held in the United States from November 4 to December 7, 1796, when electors throughout the country cast their ballots. Because incumbent president George Washington refused a third term, this became the first U.S. presidential election in which political parties competed for the presidency. It was also the first contested American presidential election; as in the previous two elections, no candidates were formally put forward for voters to choose between.
Sources
- 1796 United States presidential election Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-20
- John Adams Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.