1884 U.S. presidential election

In 1884 Democrat Grover Cleveland, the reform governor of New York, defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine by 219 electoral votes to 182, becoming the first Democrat elected president since James Buchanan in 1856. The popular vote was close, about 48.9 percent to 48.3. New York decided the outcome, and Cleveland carried it by only about 1,000 votes out of more than a million.¹²

It was a campaign of scandals. Blaine was dogged by the 'Mulligan letters,' which suggested he had used his office to help a railroad in exchange for favors, and reform-minded Republicans known as Mugwumps bolted to Cleveland. Republicans answered with the revelation that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock, chanting 'Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?' Cleveland's campaign chose to acknowledge the story rather than deny it. Days before the vote, a Protestant minister at a Blaine event in New York called the Democrats the party of 'rum, Romanism, and rebellion,' and Blaine's failure to disavow it quickly may have cost him Irish Catholic votes in the decisive state. Cleveland's win ended 24 years of Republican control of the White House.¹