The election of 1824 was a turning point in American history.

Long before November of 1824, Americans understood that the winner of that election would be the first in America's second generation to hold the presidency.

When the election began, all four viable candidates were technically from the same party.

By the time it was over, the election had generated the rivalries and passions

that formed the groundwork for a new national party system. How did Andrew Jackson win the most

votes in the electoral college and still lose the election? How did John Quincy Adams win the

presidency, but ultimately lose the country? And was it all due to a corrupt bargain, as some critics alleged,

or is there more to the story? Let's find out. Welcome to the Road to Now's third-party

election series. Today, part one, the election of 1824 with Lindsay Trevensky.

As we travel on the road to now, we are also on the road to the 2024 election.

At this point, we're recording this.

We've already seen some results.

So this year, there's a lot of talk about what we might call also RANs.

I mean, we can say third party candidates or third candidates or something like this,

but the reality is there might be more than just one more.

I mean, we're seeing the potential of impact by any number of candidates.

And when this happens, we frequently see those in the media reflect on past instances in which a third-party candidate has affected things. And we also regularly see that, well, they don't do

very good history a lot of the times. And they throw out kind of references that don't make

sense or they leave out. But I think we historians often see as parallels that are missed.

So in this series beginning today, Bob and I are going through, going down the road of elections in American history where there were more than two candidates where you see a strong third or fourth party contender.

And what we want to do is look at them, understand the issues at stake that drove interest in outside candidates, perhaps.

And we want to understand the impact that this had at the time and later on and then hopefully break down for our listeners what might be useful about

...