1848 United States presidential election in Texas

Main article: 1848 United States presidential election

1848 United States presidential election in Texas

November 7, 1848 1852  →

Nominee Lewis Cass Zachary Taylor Party Democratic Whig Home state Michigan Louisiana Running mate William O. Butler Millard Fillmore Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 10,668 4,509 Percentage 70.29% 29.71%

County Results Cass   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%   90-100% Taylor   50-60%

President before election James K. Polk Democratic Elected President Zachary Taylor Whig

The 1848 United States presidential election in Texas was held on November 7, 1848, as part of the 1848 United States presidential election. State voters chose four electors to represent the state in the Electoral College, which chose the president and vice president.

Texas had become the 28th state on December 29, 1845 and would be officially annexed by the United States on February 19, 1846, making this the first presidential election in which the state participated. The area which was Texas was much larger than it is today, but from a purely geographical perspective it was only a minority of this vast territory, specifically the southern and eastern regions of the new state that was settled, organized into counties and thus actually participated in the election. This was the last U.S. presidential election prior to the Compromise of 1850, a part of which included Texas ceding the extremity of its northwestern claims to the federal government and establishing its modern borders. However, it would not be until the 1920s that the entirety of the land within even Texas' post-1850 borders was organized into counties, which was (and technically still is) a legal prerequisite for voting to take place in Texas.

The settled regions of the state were mostly used as rural farming land, making the Democratic pro-slavery voters more likely to vote for Lewis Cass and as a result, Texas overwhelmingly voted for the Democratic nominee Lewis Cass, who received 70.3% of the vote. Texas was Cass's strongest state by far, indeed the solitary state where he received over 56% of the popular vote. Whig candidate Zachary Taylor, who ultimately won the national electoral vote and was thus elected President, was the only other candidate to receive any votes. As was the case with most slave states, former President Martin Van Buren's Free Soil Party ticket did not distribute ballots in Texas.

Results

1848 United States presidential election in Texas [1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Lewis Cass	10,668	70.29%	4
	Whig	Zachary Taylor	4,509	29.71%	0
Total			15,177	100.0%	4

See also

• United States presidential elections in Texas

References

1. "1848 Presidential General Election Results – Texas". David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.