Fact

• The Progressive Party has changed and evolved over time. Its values are neither conservative nor liberal, representing both throughout its history.
  
  

Significance

• Robert La Follette, a conservative, started a party that became known as the Progressive Party; after it ended, Harry Truman, a liberal, started another era of the Party. Both men are considered party reformists.
  
  

Contribution

• The progressive effect's purpose is to alter election outcomes and shape public policy.
  
  

Impact

• Theodore Roosevelt--the Progressive Party's first presidential candidate--lost the election to Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. However, Roosevelt received more votes than the Republican Party's candidate.
  
  

Benefits

• The term progressive effect also refers to the change in political outcomes due to voters' political moods, such as a response to a disaster or a war that evokes extreme emotion. Disapproving voters come together in support of an alternative position in order to persuade party leaders to support their position.