United States Presidential Election of 1836

Martin Van Buren won 170 to 73 as the Whigs ran three regional candidates and lost.

Overview

The new Whig Party, unable to settle on a national leader, ran William Henry Harrison in the North and West, Hugh White in the South, and Daniel Webster in Massachusetts, hoping to throw the election to the House. Van Buren, Jackson's chosen heir, defeated the strategy, winning 170 electoral votes to 73 for Harrison, 26 for Hugh White, and 14 for Webster, though a Virginia elector refused to vote for his vice president, Richard Johnson, sending that choice to the Senate for the only time. The Panic of 1837 then doomed Van Buren's term.