In 1828, Andrew Jackson was running for President. His opponents called him a “stubborn jackass”. Jackson liked the description and put a donkey on his campaign posters. The Democrats decided to adopt the donkey as their symbol. They put it on campaign posters and flyers. In 1874, there were rumors that President Grant might run for a third term. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast had a heard a false story about wild animals escaping from the Central Park Zoo. This gave him the idea to draw the Republican Party as a rampaging elephant in a cartoon that ran in Harper’s Weekly. The cartoon was captioned “The Third Term Panic” and was critical of those who feared Grant running for a third term. Nast uses various animals to represent voting blocs. The elephant is labeled “the Republican vote”. Nast includes a donkey representing the Democrats. He continued to use both animals in his cartoons and this cemented these political symbols in the public mind. Speaking of symbols, Nast created our current image of Santa Claus in numerous drawings. He depicted him as chubby with a long beard and red suit.
– Uncle 4 p. 195
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/23805/how-did-donkey-elephant-become-political-mascots
https://www.history.com/news/how-did-the-republican-and-democratic-parties-get-their-animal-symbols
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