1864 United States presidential election information
20th quadrennial U.S. presidential election
1864 United States presidential election
← 1860
November 8, 1864
1868 →
234 members[a] (+17 invalidated)[b] of the Electoral College 118 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout
73.8%[3] 7.4 pp
Nominee
Abraham Lincoln
George B. McClellan
Party
National Union
Democratic
Alliance
Parties
Republican
War Democrats
Unconditional Union
Home state
Illinois
New Jersey
Running mate
Andrew Johnson
George H. Pendleton
Electoral vote
212[a] (+17 invalidated)[b]
21
States carried
22 (+2 invalidated)[b]
3
Popular vote
2,218,388
1,812,807
Percentage
55.1%
44.9%
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Lincoln/Johnson, Blue denotes those won by McClellan/Pendleton, and Maroon denotes non-voting Confederate states. The states of Louisiana and Tennessee, which had recently been captured from Confederate control, held elections; however, no electoral votes were counted from them.[2] One of Nevada's three electors was snowbound and unable to cast a vote for President or Vice President.[1] Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state.
President before election
Abraham Lincoln
Republican
Elected President
Abraham Lincoln
National Union
The 1864 United States presidential election was the 20th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Near the end of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.
Despite some intra-party opposition from Salmon Chase and the Radical Republicans, Lincoln won his party's nomination at the 1864 National Union National Convention. Rather than re-nominate Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, the convention selected Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a War Democrat, as Lincoln's running mate. John C. Frémont started to run as the nominee of the new Radical Democracy Party, which criticized Lincoln for being too moderate on the issue of racial equality, but Frémont withdrew from the race in September and that new party dissolved. The Democrats were divided between the Copperheads, who favored immediate peace with the Confederacy, and War Democrats, who supported the war. The 1864 Democratic National Convention nominated McClellan, a War Democrat, but adopted a platform advocating peace with the Confederacy, which McClellan rejected. The Confederacy seemed to have survival potential in summer 1864, but was visibly collapsing by election day in November.
Despite his early fears of defeat, Lincoln won strong majorities in the popular and electoral vote, partly as a result of the recent Union victory at the Battle of Atlanta.[4] As the Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven southern states that had joined the Confederate States of America.[2] Lincoln's re-election ensured that he would preside over the successful conclusion of the Civil War.
Lincoln's victory made him the first president to win re-election since Andrew Jackson in 1832, as well as the first Northern president to ever win re-election. Lincoln was assassinated less than two months into his second term, and he was succeeded by his vice president, Andrew Johnson, who favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the former slaves. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
^ abRocha, Guy. "Nevada Myths". Nevada State Library and Archives. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
^ abcDonald, David Herbert; Baker, Jean Harvey; Holt, Michael F. (2001). The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 427. ISBN 9780393974270.
^"Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections". The American Presidency Project. UC Santa Barbara.
^Davis, William C. (1999). Lincoln's Men: How President Lincoln became Father to an Army and a Nation. Simon and Schuster. p. 211. ISBN 0-684-83337-9. The public entrusted Lincoln with another term in spite of widespread revulsion at the death toll in the Wilderness Campaign. Republicans had found success in gubernatorial races in Ohio and Pennsylvania by attracting the votes of furloughed soldiers. In order to copy the same success nationally, thirteen Union states allowed their citizens serving as soldiers in the field to cast ballots. Four additional Union states allowed "proxy" absentee voting. "By margins of three to one or better, the soldiers lined up behind Lincoln." In every state, those returning home influenced their friends and family. For an alternative account of army voting, see W. Dean Burnham, "Presidential Ballots: 1836–1892", pp. 260–83. Out of the 40,247 Army votes cast in seven states, Lincoln carried six of them with 30,503 votes (75.8%).
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
and 30 Related for: 1864 United States presidential election information
The 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection in Louisiana took place on November 8, 1864, as part of the 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection. Louisiana...
The 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection in Pennsylvania took place on November 8, 1864, as part of the 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection. Voters...
The 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection in Massachusetts took place on November 8, 1864, as part of the 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection. Voters...
The 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection in Wisconsin was held on November 8, 1864 as part of the 1864UnitedStatespresidentialelection. State voters...
Following is a table of UnitedStatespresidentialelections in Texas, ordered by year. Since its admission to statehood in 1845, Texas has participated...
Following is a table of UnitedStatespresidentialelections in North Carolina, ordered by year. Since its admission to statehood in 1789, North Carolina...
region of the UnitedStates. Since its admission to the Union in March 1845, it has participated in 43 UnitedStatespresidentialelections. Florida participated...
Global Information
7.4 pp
