1864 United States elections

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1864 United States elections
1862          1863         1864         1865          1866
Presidential election year
Election dayNovember 8
Incumbent president Abraham Lincoln (National Union)
Next Congress 39th
Presidential election
Partisan controlNational Union hold
Popular vote marginNational Union +10.0%
Electoral vote
Abraham Lincoln (NU)212 [1]
George B. McClellan (D)21
ElectoralCollege1864.svg
1864 presidential election results. Red denotes states won by Lincoln, blue denotes states won by McClellan, and brown denotes Confederate states that did not participate in the election. Numbers indicate the electoral votes won by each candidate.
Senate elections
Overall controlNational Union hold
Seats contested14 of 50 seats [2]
Net seat changeNational Union +2 [3]
House elections
Overall controlNational Union hold
Seats contestedAll 243 voting members
Net seat changeNational Union +40 [3]
1864 US house results.svg
1864–65 House of Representatives election results
     National Union gain     National Union hold
     Democratic gain     Democratic hold

Elections for the 39th United States Congress. National Union president Abraham Lincoln was elected to a second term, while the Republican-Unionist coalition increased its majorities in the United States Congress. The elections were held during the American Civil War. Lincoln was assassinated shortly after his second inauguration and was succeeded by Johnson, who tried and failed to sustain the National Union Party.

In the presidential election, the National Union ticket of the incumbent president Abraham Lincoln and the military governor of Tennessee Andrew Johnson defeated the Democratic ticket of major general George B. McClellan and the U.S. representative from Ohio's 1st congressional district George H. Pendleton. [4] Lincoln overcame factionalism in the Union Party and early concerns about the progress of the war to easily carry both the popular and electoral vote; his margin in the electoral college represented the greatest share of the electoral vote since James Monroe's uncontested re-election in 1820. Lincoln's victory made him the first president to win re-election since Andrew Jackson in 1832 and the first president not affiliated with the Democratic-Republican Party or the Democratic Party to win a second term.

Republican-Unionists gained seats in the House of Representatives, converting their plurality into a majority. [5]

In the Senate, Republican-Unionists gained several seats, and continued to hold a majority. [6]

See also

References

  1. Lincoln won elections held in Louisiana and Tennessee, which collectively had an additional 17 electoral votes, but these electoral votes were not counted by Congress.
  2. Not counting special elections.
  3. 1 2 Congressional seat gain figures only reflect the results of the regularly-scheduled elections, and do not take special elections into account.
  4. "1864 Presidential Election". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
  5. "Party Divisions of the House of Representatives". United States House of Representatives. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
  6. "Party Division in the Senate, 1789-Present". United States Senate. Retrieved June 25, 2014.