1836 United States presidential election
The 1836 United States presidential election was the 13th quadrennial presidential election, held from Thursday, November 3 to Wednesday, December 7, 1836. In the third consecutive election victory for the Democratic Party, incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren defeated four candidates fielded by the nascent Whig Party.
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294 members of the Electoral College 148 electoral votes needed to win | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 56.5% 0.5 pp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Van Buren and Johnson or Smith, Oriental Pink denotes those won by Harrison and Granger or Tyler, Maroon denotes those won by White/Tyler, Cranberry denotes those won by Webster/Granger, and Seafoam denotes those won by Mangum/Tyler. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1837 contingent U.S. vice presidential election | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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52 United States senators 27 votes needed to win | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1835 Democratic National Convention chose a ticket of Van Buren (President Andrew Jackson's handpicked successor) and U.S. Representative Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. The Whig Party, which had only recently emerged and was primarily united by opposition to Jackson, was not yet sufficiently organized to agree on a single candidate. Hoping to compel a contingent election in the House of Representatives by denying the Democrats an electoral majority, the Whigs ran multiple candidates. Most Northern and border state Whigs supported the ticket led by former Senator William Henry Harrison of Ohio, while most Southern Whigs supported the ticket led by Senator Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee. Two other Whigs, Daniel Webster and Willie Person Mangum, carried Massachusetts and South Carolina respectively on single-state tickets.
Despite facing multiple candidates, Van Buren won a majority of the electoral vote, and he won a majority of the popular vote in both the North and the South. Nonetheless, the Whig strategy came very close to success, as Van Buren won the decisive state of Pennsylvania by just over two points. As Virginia's electors voted for Van Buren but refused to vote for Johnson, Johnson fell one vote short of an electoral majority, compelling a contingent election for vice president. In that contingent election, the United States Senate elected Johnson over Harrison's running mate, Francis Granger, on the first ballot.
Van Buren was the third incumbent vice president to win election as president, an event which would not happen again until 1988, when George H. W. Bush was elected president. He is also the most recent Democrat to be elected to succeed a two-term Democratic president. Harrison finished second in both the popular and electoral vote, and his strong performance helped him win the Whig nomination in the 1840 presidential election. The election of 1836 was crucial in developing the Second Party System and a stable two-party system more generally. By the end of the election, nearly every independent faction had been absorbed by either the Democrats or the Whigs.