| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
294 members of the Electoral College 148 electoral votes needed to win | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Turnout | 56.5% [1] 0.5 pp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Van Buren/Johnson, Yellow denotes those won by Harrison/Granger, Maroon denotes those won by White/Tyler, Pink denotes those won by Webster/Granger, and Green denotes those won by Mangum/Tyler. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1837 contingent U.S. vice presidential election | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
52 United States senators 27 votes needed to win | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Senate by state. Blue denotes states that voted for Johnson, Yellow denotes those that voted for Granger, Green denotes those that did not vote. State with multiple colors had Senators that voted differently from each other. |
Presidential elections were held in the United States from November 3 to December 7, 1836. Incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren, candidate of the Democratic Party, defeated four candidates fielded by the nascent Whig Party.
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.
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, and the only sitting Democratic vice president to win the presidency. [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]
1836 Democratic Party ticket | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Martin Van Buren | Richard M. Johnson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
for President | for Vice President | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
8th Vice President of the United States (1833–1837) | U.S. Representative from Kentucky (1807–1819, 1829–1837) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 1835 Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland, from May 20 to 22, 1835. The early date of the convention was selected by President Andrew Jackson to prevent the formation of opposition to Martin Van Buren. Twenty-two states and two territories were represented at the convention with Alabama, Illinois, and South Carolina being unrepresented. The delegate amount per state varied from Maryland having 188 delegates to cast its ten votes while Tennessee's fifteen votes were cast by one delegate. [4]
The convention saw the first credentials dispute in American history with two rival delegations from Pennsylvania claiming the state's votes. The issue was solved by seating both delegations and having them share the state's votes. An attempt to remove the two-thirds requirement for the selection of a candidate was passed by a vote of 231 to 210, but was later restored through a voice vote. [4]
Some Southerners opposed Johnson's nomination, due to his open relationship with an enslaved woman, whom he had regarded as his common-law wife. At the convention, Van Buren was nominated unanimously with all 265 delegates in favor, but the Virginia delegates supported Senator William Cabell Rives against Johnson. However, Rives got little support and Johnson was nominated with one more vote than the two-thirds requirement. [5] [4]
Presidential vote | Vice presidential vote | ||
---|---|---|---|
Martin Van Buren | 265 | Richard M. Johnson | 178 |
William C. Rives | 87 |
Whig presidential candidates | |
---|---|
William Henry Harrison Former U.S. Senator from Ohio | |
Daniel Webster U.S. Senator from Massachusetts | |
Hugh L. White U.S. Senator from Tennessee | |
Willie Person Mangum U.S. Senator from North Carolina | |
Whig vice-presidential candidates | |
Francis Granger U.S. Representative from New York | |
John Tyler U.S. Senator from Virginia |
The Whig Party emerged during the 1834 mid-term elections as the chief opposition to the Democratic Party. The party was formed from members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party, disaffected Jacksonians, and small remnants of the Federalist Party (people whose last political activity was with them a decade before). Some Southerners who were angered by Jackson's opposition to states' rights, including Sen. John C. Calhoun and the Nullifiers, also temporarily joined the Whig coalition. [5]
Unlike the Democrats, the Whigs did not hold a national convention. Instead, state legislatures and state conventions nominated candidates, being the reason why so many candidates from the Whig party ran in the general election. Southern Nullifiers placed Tennessee Senator Hugh Lawson White into contention for the presidency in 1834 soon after his break with Jackson. White was a moderate on the states' rights issue, which made him acceptable in the South, but not in the North. The state legislatures of Alabama and Tennessee officially nominated White. The South Carolina state legislature nominated Senator Willie Person Mangum of North Carolina. By early 1835, Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster was building support among Northern Whigs. Both Webster and White used Senate debates to establish their positions on the issues of the day, as newspapers carried the text of their speeches nationwide. The Pennsylvania legislature nominated popular former general William Henry Harrison, who had led American forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe. The Whigs hoped that Harrison's reputation as a military hero could win voter support. Harrison soon displaced Webster as the preferred candidate of Northern Whigs. State legislatures, particularly in larger states, also nominated various vice presidential candidates. [5]
Despite multiple candidates, there was only one Whig ticket in each state. The Whigs ended up with two main tickets: William Henry Harrison for president and Francis Granger for vice president in the North and Kentucky, and Hugh Lawson White for president and John Tyler for vice president in the middle and lower South. In Massachusetts, the ticket was Daniel Webster for president and Granger for vice president. In South Carolina, the ticket was Mangum for president and Tyler for vice president. In Maryland, it was Harrison and Tyler. Of the four Whig presidential candidates, only Harrison was on the ballot in enough states for it to be mathematically possible for him to win a majority in the Electoral College, and even then, it would have required him to win Van Buren's home state of New York. [5]
After the negative views of Freemasonry among a large segment of the public began to wane in the mid-1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party began to disintegrate. Some of its members began moving to the Whig Party, which had a broader issue base than the Anti-Masons. The Whigs were also regarded as a better alternative to the Democrats.
A state convention for the Anti-Masonic Party was held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from December 14 to 17, 1835, to choose presidential electors for the 1836 election. The convention unanimously nominated William Henry Harrison for president and Francis Granger for vice president. The Vermont state Anti-Masonic convention followed suit on February 24, 1836. Anti-Masonic leaders were unable to obtain assurance from Harrison that he was not a Mason, so they called a national convention. The second national Anti-Masonic nominating convention was held in Philadelphia on May 4, 1836. The meeting was divisive, but a majority of the delegates officially stated that the party was not sponsoring a national ticket for the presidential election of 1836 and proposed a meeting in 1837 to discuss the future of the party.
The Nullifier Party had also begun to decline sharply since the previous election, after it became clear that the doctrine of nullification lacked sufficient support outside of the party's political base of South Carolina to ever make the Nullifiers more than a fringe party nationwide. Many party members began to drift towards the Democratic Party, but there was no question of the party endorsing Van Buren's bid for the presidency, as he and Calhoun were sworn enemies. Seeing little point in running their own ticket, Calhoun pushed the party into backing the White/Tyler ticket, as White had previously sided against Jackson during the Nullification Crisis.
In the aftermath of the Nat Turner's Rebellion and other events, slavery emerged as an increasingly prominent political issue. Calhoun attacked Van Buren, saying that he could not be trusted to protect Southern interests and accusing the sitting Vice President of affiliating with abolitionists. [5] Van Buren defeated Harrison by a margin of 51.4% to 48.6% in the North, and he defeated White by a similar margin of 50.7% to 49.3% in the South.
A dispute similar to that of Indiana in 1817 and Missouri in 1821 arose during the counting of the electoral votes. Michigan only became a state on January 26, 1837, and had cast its electoral votes for president before that date. Anticipating a challenge to the results, Congress resolved on February 4, 1837, that during the counting four days later the final tally would be read twice, once with Michigan and once without Michigan. The counting proceeded in accordance with the resolution. The dispute had no bearing on the final result: either way, Van Buren was elected, and either way no candidate had a majority for vice-president. [6]
22.4% of the voting age population and 56.5% of eligible voters participated in the election. [7]
The Whigs' strategy narrowly failed to prevent Van Buren's victory in the Electoral College, though he earned a somewhat lower share of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes than Andrew Jackson had in either of the previous two elections. The key state in this election was ultimately Pennsylvania, which Van Buren won from Harrison with a narrow majority of just 4,222 votes or 2.4%. Had Harrison won the state, Van Buren would have been left eight votes short of an Electoral College majority - despite receiving a majority (50.48%) in the popular vote - and the Whig goal to force the election into the House of Representatives (per the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution) would have succeeded. Thus, the 11.8% difference between the margin in the tipping point state of Pennsylvania and the margin in the national popular vote, is the largest gap in American history.
In a contingent election, the House would have been required to choose between Van Buren, Harrison, and White as the three candidates with the most electoral votes. Jacksonians controlled enough state delegations (14 out of 26) and enough Senate seats (31 out of 52) to win both the presidency and the vice presidency in a contingent election.
This was the last election in which the Democrats won Connecticut, Rhode Island, and North Carolina until 1852. This was also the only election where South Carolina voted for the Whigs, and the last time it voted against the Democrats until 1868. It was also the last time that a Democrat was elected to the U.S. presidency succeeding a Democrat who had served two terms as U.S. president. [8]
Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote(a) | Electoral vote | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Count | Percentage | ||||
Martin Van Buren | Democratic | New York | 764,176 | 50.83% | 170 |
William Henry Harrison | Whig | Ohio | 550,816 | 36.63% | 73 |
Hugh Lawson White | Whig | Tennessee | 146,107 | 9.72% | 26 |
Daniel Webster | Whig | Massachusetts | 41,201 | 2.74% | 14 |
Willie Person Mangum | Whig | North Carolina | —(b) | — | 11 |
Other | 1,234 | 0.08% | 0 | ||
Total | 1,503,534 | 100.0% | 294 | ||
Needed to win | 148 |
Source (Popular Vote):Leip, David. "1836 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 27, 2005.Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration . Retrieved July 31, 2005.
(a)The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote.
(b)Mangum received his electoral votes from South Carolina where the electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.
Vice presidential candidate | Party | State | Electoral vote |
---|---|---|---|
Richard M. Johnson | Democratic | Kentucky | 147 |
Francis Granger | Whig | New York | 77 |
John Tyler | Whig | Virginia | 47 |
William Smith | Democratic | South Carolina | 23 |
Total | 294 | ||
Needed to win | 148 |
Source: "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration . Retrieved July 31, 2005.
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836-1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.
States/districts won by Van Buren/Johnson |
States/districts won by a Whig candidate |
Martin Van Buren Democratic | William H. Harrison Whig | Hugh L. White Whig | Daniel Webster Whig | Willie Person Mangum Whig | Margin | Total | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
State | electoral votes | Votes cast | % | electoral votes | Votes cast | % | electoral votes | Votes cast | % | electoral votes | Votes cast | % | electoral votes | electoral votes | # | % | # | |
Alabama | 7 | 20,638 | 55.34 | 7 | no ballots | 16,658 | 44.66 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 3,980 | 10.68 | 37,296 | AL | ||||
Arkansas | 3 | 2,380 | 64.08 | 3 | no ballots | 1,334 | 35.92 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 1,046 | 28.16 | 3,714 | AR | ||||
Connecticut | 8 | 19,294 | 50.65 | 8 | 18,799 | 49.35 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 495 | 1.30 | 38,093 | CT | ||||
Delaware | 3 | 4,154 | 46.70 | 0 | 4,736 | 53.24 | 3 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -582 | -6.54 | 8,895 | DE | ||||
Georgia | 11 | 22,778 | 48.20 | 0 | no ballots | 24,481 | 51.80 | 11 | no ballots | no ballots | -1,703 | -3.60 | 47,259 | GA | ||||
Illinois | 5 | 18,369 | 54.69 | 5 | 15,220 | 45.31 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 3,149 | 9.38 | 33,589 | IL | ||||
Indiana | 9 | 32,478 | 44.03 | 0 | 41,281 | 55.97 | 9 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -8,803 | -11.94 | 73,759 | IN | ||||
Kentucky | 15 | 33,229 | 47.41 | 0 | 36,861 | 52.59 | 15 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -3,632 | -5.18 | 70,090 | KY | ||||
Louisiana | 5 | 3,842 | 51.74 | 5 | no ballots | 3,583 | 48.26 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 259 | 3.48 | 7,425 | LA | ||||
Maine | 10 | 22,825 | 58.92 | 10 | 14,803 | 38.21 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 8,022 | 20.71 | 38,740 | ME | ||||
Maryland | 10 | 22,267 | 46.27 | 0 | 25,852 | 53.73 | 10 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -3,585 | -7.46 | 48,119 | MD | ||||
Massachusetts | 14 | 33,486 | 44.81 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 41,201 | 55.13 | 14 | no ballots | -7,715 | -10.32 | 74,687 | MA | ||||
Michigan | 3 | 7,122 | 56.22 | 3 | 5,545 | 43.78 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 1,577 | 12.44 | 12,667 | MI | ||||
Mississippi | 4 | 10,297 | 51.28 | 4 | no ballots | 9,782 | 48.72 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 515 | 2.56 | 20,079 | MS | ||||
Missouri | 4 | 10,995 | 59.98 | 4 | no ballots | 7,337 | 40.02 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 3,658 | 19.96 | 18,332 | MO | ||||
New Hampshire | 7 | 18,697 | 75.01 | 7 | 6,228 | 24.99 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 12,469 | 50.02 | 24,925 | NH | ||||
New Jersey | 8 | 25,592 | 49.47 | 0 | 26,137 | 50.53 | 8 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -545 | -1.06 | 51,729 | NJ | ||||
New York | 42 | 166,795 | 54.63 | 42 | 138,548 | 45.37 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 28,247 | 9.26 | 305,343 | NY | ||||
North Carolina | 15 | 26,631 | 53.10 | 15 | no ballots | 23,521 | 46.90 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 3,110 | 6.20 | 50,153 | NC | ||||
Ohio | 21 | 96,238 | 47.56 | 0 | 104,958 | 51.87 | 21 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -8,720 | -4.31 | 202,333 | OH | ||||
Pennsylvania | 30 | 91,457 | 51.18 | 30 | 87,235 | 48.82 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 4,222 | 2.36 | 178,692 | PA | ||||
Rhode Island | 4 | 2,964 | 52.24 | 4 | 2,710 | 47.76 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | 254 | 4.48 | 5,674 | RI | ||||
South Carolina | 11 | no popular vote | no popular vote | no popular vote | no popular vote | 11 | - | - | 0 | SC | ||||||||
Tennessee | 15 | 26,170 | 42.08 | 0 | no ballots | 36,027 | 57.92 | 15 | no ballots | no ballots | -9,857 | -15.84 | 62,197 | TN | ||||
Vermont | 7 | 14,037 | 40.07 | 0 | 20,994 | 59.93 | 7 | no ballots | no ballots | no ballots | -6,957 | -19.86 | 35,031 | VT | ||||
Virginia | 23 | 30,556 | 56.64 | 23 | no ballots | 23,384 | 43.35 | 0 | no ballots | no ballots | 7,172 | 13.29 | 53,945 | VA | ||||
TOTALS: | 294 | 763,291 | 50.79 | 170 | 549,907 | 36.59 | 73 | 146,107 | 9.72 | 26 | 41,201 | 2.74 | 14 | 11 | 213,384 | 14.20 | 1,502,811 | US |
TO WIN: | 148 |
States where the margin of victory was under 5%:
States where the margin of victory was under 10%:
Candidate | Total | Martin Van Buren Democratic | William H. Harrison Whig | Hugh L. White Whig | Daniel Webster Whig | Willie P. Mangum Whig |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Electoral Votes for President | 294 | 170 | 73 | 26 | 14 | 11 |
For Vice President, Richard Mentor Johnson | 147 | 147 | ||||
For Vice President, Francis Granger | 77 | 63 | 14 | |||
For Vice President, John Tyler | 47 | 10 | 26 | 11 | ||
For Vice President, William Smith | 23 | 23 |
In an unusual turn of events, Virginia's 23 electors, who were all pledged to Van Buren and his running mate Richard Mentor Johnson, became faithless electors due to dissension related to Johnson's interracial relationship with a slave [9] and refused to vote for Johnson, instead casting their vice-presidential votes for former South Carolina senator William Smith.
This left Johnson one electoral vote short of an Electoral College majority. Since no vice presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, for the only time in American history, the Senate decided a vice presidential race in a contingent election. [10]
On February 8, 1837, Johnson was elected on the first ballot by a vote of 33 to 16; the vote proceeded largely along party lines, albeit with three Whigs voting for Johnson, one Democrat voting for Granger, and three abstentions (Hugh L. White declined to vote out of respect for his own running-mate, John Tyler, while the two Nullifier Party senators refused to back either candidate). [11]
Method of choosing electors | State(s) |
---|---|
Each Elector appointed by state legislature | South Carolina |
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide | (all other States) |
Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he served as New York's attorney general and U.S. senator, then briefly as the ninth governor of New York before joining Andrew Jackson's administration as the tenth United States secretary of state, minister to Great Britain, and ultimately the eighth vice president from 1833 to 1837, after being elected on Jackson's ticket in 1832. Van Buren won the presidency in 1836 against divided Whig opponents. Van Buren lost re-election in 1840, and failed to win the Democratic nomination in 1844. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and an anti-slavery leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
The Whig Party was a mid-19th century political party in the United States. Alongside the Democratic Party, it was one of two major parties between the late 1830s and the early 1850s and part of the Second Party System. As well as four Whig presidents, other prominent members included Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, William Seward, John J. Crittenden, and John Quincy Adams. The Whig base of support was amongst entrepreneurs, professionals, Protestants, and the urban middle class. It had much less backing from poor farmers and unskilled workers.
Presidential elections were held in the United States from November 2 to December 5, 1832. Incumbent president Andrew Jackson, candidate of the Democratic Party, defeated Henry Clay, candidate of the National Republican Party.
Presidential elections were held in the United States from October 30 to December 2, 1840. In the shadow of an incomplete economic recovery from the Panic of 1837, Whig nominee William Henry Harrison defeated incumbent President Martin Van Buren of the Democratic Party. The election marked the first of two Whig victories in presidential elections, but was the only one where they won a majority of the popular vote. This was also the third rematch in American history.
Presidential elections were held in the United States from November 1 to December 4, 1844. Democratic nominee James K. Polk narrowly defeated Whig Henry Clay in a close contest turning on the controversial issues of slavery and the annexation of the Republic of Texas. This is the only election in which both major party nominees served as Speaker of the House at one point, and the first in which neither candidate held elective office at the time.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 1848. Held in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War, General Zachary Taylor of the Whig Party defeated Senator Lewis Cass of the Democratic Party.
Willie Person Mangum was an American politician and planter who served as U.S. Senator from the state of North Carolina between 1831 and 1836 and between 1840 and 1853. He was one of the founders and leading members of the Whig party, and was a candidate for president in 1836 as part of the unsuccessful Whig strategy to defeat Martin Van Buren by running four candidates with local appeal in different regions of the country.
The 1839 Whig National Convention was a presidential nominating convention held from December 4 to December 8 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was the first national convention ever held by the Whig Party, and was organized to select the party's nominee in the 1840 presidential election. The convention nominated former Senator William Henry Harrison of Ohio for president and former Senator John Tyler of Virginia for vice president.
The 1832 Democratic National Convention was held from May 21 to May 23, 1832, in Baltimore, Maryland. In the first presidential nominating convention ever held by the Democratic Party, incumbent President Andrew Jackson was nominated for a second term, while former Secretary of State Martin Van Buren was nominated for vice president.
The 1835 Democratic National Convention was held from May 20 to May 22, 1835, in Baltimore, Maryland. The convention nominated incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren for president and Representative Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky for vice president.
The 1844 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention held in Baltimore, Maryland from May 27 through 30. The convention nominated former Governor James K. Polk of Tennessee for president and former Senator George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania for vice president. The convention included three former vice presidents who sought the presidential nomination, John C. Calhoun, Van Buren and Richard Mentor Johnson.
The 1840 Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland, from May 5 to May 6. The Democratic Party re-nominated President Martin Van Buren by acclamation, but failed to select a nominee for vice president. Van Buren is the only major party presidential nominee since the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment to seek election without a running mate. Dragged down by the unpopularity of the Panic of 1837, Van Buren was defeated by the Whig Party's ticket in the 1840 presidential election.
The 1836 United States presidential election in Georgia took place between November 3 and December 7, 1836, as part of the 1836 United States presidential election. Voters chose 11 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1836 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place between November 3 and December 7, 1836, as part of the 1836 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.
The 1836 United States elections elected the members of the 25th United States Congress. The election saw the emergence of the Whig Party, which succeeded the National Republican Party in the Second Party System as the primary opposition to the Democratic Party. The Whigs chose their name in symbolic defiance to the leader of the Democratic Party, "King" Andrew Jackson, and supported a national bank and the American System. Despite the emergence of the Whigs as a durable political party, Democrats retained the presidency and a majority in both houses of Congress.
In 1840, William Henry Harrison was elected President of the United States. Harrison, who had served as a general and as United States Senator from Ohio, defeated the incumbent president, Democrat Martin Van Buren, in a campaign that broke new ground in American politics. Among other firsts, Harrison's victory was the first time the Whig Party won a presidential election. A month after taking office, Harrison died and his running mate John Tyler served the remainder of his term, but broke from the Whig agenda, and was expelled from the party.
The history of the United States Whig Party lasted from the establishment of the Whig Party early in President Andrew Jackson's second term (1833–1837) to the collapse of the party during the term of President Franklin Pierce (1853–1857). This article covers the party in national politics. For state politics see Whig Party.
You'd have to go back even further in history to find the most recent instance of a Democrat being elected to succeed a two-term president from the same party. The last time that happened was in 1836 when voters elected Martin Van Buren to follow Andrew Jackson.