Democratic Party - The donkey was adopted as the official symbol of the Democratic Party after U.S. President Andrew Jackson, America's seventh president, twisted an election-year slur and used it to his advantage. During his first term in office, Jackson was called a "jackass" by his opponents in the Whig Party - which would later become the Republican Party - after he vetoed a bill to re-charter the national bank system. Jackson proudly displayed the donkey on the campaign posters used in 1832 for his second run at office to portray his stubbornness.

Republican Party - The elephant became the symbol of the Republican Party in 1874 after Harper's Weekly magazine depicted a donkey trying to scare an elephant in a political cartoon.