The 1884 United States presidential election was the 25th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1884. In the election, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. It was set apart by unpleasant mudslinging and shameful personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was an American politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He is the only president in U.S. history to serve non-consecutive presidential terms. In the years before his presidency, he served as a mayor and as governor of New York state, winning fame as an anti-corruption crusader. Cleveland was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War, and was one of two Democratic presidents, followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912, in an era when Republicans dominated the presidency between 1869 and 1933. He won the popular vote in three presidential elections—1884, 1888, and 1892. Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college vote, and thus the presidency, in 1888.