The presidential election of 1800 ended in a tie, as the two Democratic-Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each received 73 electoral votes.

The presidential election of 1800 was one of the most controversial and consequential in the history of the United States. It represented a true changing of the guard as the Federalist party of Washington, Hamilton, and Adams gave way to the Democratic-Republican ideals of Jefferson and Madison and took the United States in a different direction for a generation to come.

John Adams’s loss to Thomas Jefferson in the presidential election of 1800 was a great disappointment for Adams and marked the end of the public life of this devoted patriot. For a quarter of a century, Adams had been serving at the center of the fight to create and establish the country he loved. By all accounts, he arguably did more to shape the United States than any other Founding Father, except for the incomparable George Washington.