Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major parties in the United States. The party is currently the minority party in the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and among state governors. The party also trails in state legislatures as the Republican Party controls 21 legislatures and Democrats control 19. Ten states are divided legislatures. Of the two major U.S. parties, the Democratic Party is to the left of the Republican Party, though its politics are not as consistently leftist as the traditional social democratic and labor parties in much of the rest of the world.

A note on style

The usual adjective used in connection with the party is "Democratic", e.g., "Democratic Party" or "Democratic candidates", whereas members of the party are "Democrats". In order to avoid the arguably positive connotation of the word "democratic", Republicans will occasionally use "Democrat" as the adjective form, but this is relatively rare and generally regarded as incorrect. The abbreviation "Dems" is sometimes used to refer to members of the Party, but unlike "GOP", it is generally not acceptable in formal contexts, such as the text of news articles. When identifying an elected representative, the single letter "D" is used to denote a Democrat, followed by a hyphen and an abbreviation of the locale he or she represents. For example, Barbara Boxer, a Democratic U.S. senator from California may be referred to as "U.S. Sen. Barbara L. Boxer (D-CA)" or, in Associated Press style, "U.S. Sen. Barbara L. Boxer, D-Calif."

Related Topics:
Barbara L. Boxer - Associated Press

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In most states the Democratic Party is simply known as the "Democratic Party". However, two of its state Party organizations have different names due to historical mergers and state politics, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party.

Related Topics:
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party - North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party

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