1884 United States presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1884. Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York narrowly defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. Ending a streak of six consecutive Republican victories, Cleveland was the first Democrat to win a presidential election since James Buchanan did so in 1856.

Cleveland won the presidential nomination on the second ballot of the 1884 Democratic National Convention. President Chester A. Arthur had acceded to the presidency in 1881 following the assassination of James A. Garfield, but he was unsuccessful in his bid for nomination to a full term. Blaine, who had served as Secretary of State under President Garfield, defeated Arthur and other candidates on the fourth ballot of the 1884 Republican National Convention. A group of reformist Republicans known as "Mugwumps" abandoned Blaine's candidacy, viewing him as corrupt. The campaign was characterized by mudslinging and personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change, and it was marred by exceptional political acrimony and personal invective. Blaine's reputation for public corruption and his inadvertent last minute alienation of Catholic voters proved decisive, as well as voter exhaustion after a generation of Republican rule.

In the election, Cleveland won 48.8% of the nationwide popular vote and 219 electoral votes, carrying the Solid South and several key swing states. Blaine won 48.3% of the popular vote and 182 electoral votes. Cleveland won his home state by just 1,149 votes. Two third-party candidates, John St. John of the Prohibition Party and Benjamin Butler of the Greenback Party and the Anti-Monopoly Party, each won less than 2% of the popular vote.

Marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression, Cleveland (who would be elected to another non-consecutive term in 1892) was the first Democrat elected president since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. Blaine became the only Republican nominee in the 52-year period from 1860 to 1912 never to win a presidential election, and he was the last former secretary of state to be nominated by a major political party until 2016.