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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.


294 members of the Electoral College
148 electoral votes needed to win

56.5%[1] Decrease 0.5 pp

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.[2] 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.[3]

Map of presidential election results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Map of presidential election results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Map of Democratic presidential election results by county

Map of Democratic presidential election results by county

Map of Harrison Whig presidential election results by county

Map of Harrison Whig presidential election results by county

Map of White Whig presidential election results by county

Map of White Whig presidential election results by county

Map of Webster Whig presidential election results by county

Map of Webster Whig presidential election results by county

Delaware

Kentucky

Maryland

Massachusetts

Inauguration of Martin Van Buren

History of the United States (1789–1849)

1836–37 United States House of Representatives elections

1836–37 United States Senate elections

Brown, Thomas. "The miscegenation of Richard Mentor Johnson as an issue in the national election campaign of 1835-1836." Civil War History 39.1 (1993): 5–30.

online

Cheathem, Mark. R. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018)

The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson

Ershkowitz, Herbert B. "The Election of 1836." in American Presidential Campaigns and Elections (Routledge, 2020) pp. 270–288.

Hoffmann, William S. "The Election of 1836 in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review 32.1 (1955): 31–51.

online

McCormick, Richard P. "Was There a" Whig Strategy" in 1836?." Journal of the Early Republic 4.1 (1984): 47–70.

online

Shade, William G. "'The Most Delicate and Exciting Topics': Martin Van Buren, Slavery, and the Election of 1836." Journal of the Early Republic 18.3 (1998): 459–484 .

online

Silbey, Joel H. "Election of 1836," in Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Fred L. Israel, eds. History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971), I, 577–64, history plus primary sources

Towers, Frank. "The Rise of the Whig Party." in A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson (2013): 328–347.

. The Green Papers. Retrieved March 20, 2005.

"A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College"

from the Library of Congress

Presidential Election of 1836: A Resource Guide

Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine

Election of 1836 in Counting the Votes