Democratic Party nomination , the incumbent president in 1836, whose second term expired on March 4, 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. 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.
Whig Party nomination 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. 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. 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.
Anti-Masonic Party nomination 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.
Nullifier Party nomination 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. ==General election==