Lincoln !860 Electoral Map & Results

[frontrank2]

www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org

 

[ole]

Thanks for bringing that back up. As today, the parties go for the big cities and states. The Republicans did it right and got the big cities and populous states.

 

[IcarusPhoenix]

Thanks for bringing that back up. As today, the parties go for the big cities and states. The Republicans did it right and got the big cities and populous states.

That is very much how the game is played; you can grab a lot of votes if you put the right resources (which, in the case of 1860, generally meant the right speakers and the right friendly newspapers) in the right places.

 

[Drew]

That is very much how the game is played; you can grab a lot of votes if you put the right resources (which, in the case of 1860, generally meant the right speakers and the right friendly newspapers) in the right places.

And if you exercise discipline. They did, in 1860.

Which president said, "I don't belong to an organized political party. I am a......?"

 

[IcarusPhoenix]

And if you exercise discipline. They did, in 1860.

Which president said, "I don't belong to an organized political party. I am a......?"

That wasn't a President; it was Will Rogers. You can also tell the proximity to an election by the frequency with which this quote comes up among my colleagues.

It's worth noting that aside from the choice of where to lay resources (i.e. urban areas), how they are used and what they are is now entirely different than in 1860, so "discipline" really doesn't mean the same thing here. Surprisingly, there's a lot more discipline and organization than it seems from the outside, whereas I'm not at all certain I could run the kind of candidate-free proxy campaign that was the norm of the nineteenth-century. It's very much an apple-to-oranges concept.

 

[Drew]

I've been tempted to guess at who you are, but I won't do it here. Cheers.

 

[Lnwlf]

Here is where I get my election numbers:

http://uselectionatlas.org/

I do not mean to imply that this site is better than the one shown in the OP, but it has the advantage of being able to search any election year from the first to the most recent. It is helpful if you want to see how the elections of the 1840's and '50's played out.

 

[JeffBrooks]

I find it interesting that even if the votes for all three candidates other than Lincoln had been lumped together in a single column, Lincoln still would have won the Electoral College.

 

[frontrank2]

How about the 1864 results:

 

[frontrank2]

How about the 1864 results:
View attachment 43311

It figures, my home state ( NJ ) is one of only three not to vote for Lincoln.

 

[IcarusPhoenix]

It figures, my home state ( NJ ) is one of only three not to vote for Lincoln.

Kentucky is also no surprise, though I'm sure that Lincoln took that one as something of a personal disappointment.

And who cares about Delaware?

I've been tempted to guess at who you are, but I won't do it here. Cheers.

I assure you, I'm mostly un-notable outside the state party... and depending on who I've ticked off that day, sometimes un-notable inside it. The job is not without its hazards.

 

[kevikens]

Yes, First Sergeant Frontrank, NJ voted for McClellan as he was a favorite son of the state and don't forget he would serve as NJ governor after the war and is buried in Trenton so there is no surprise there and Lincoln had to share its electoral vote back in 1860 with Douglas. What is interesting about that split is that it was the southern part of the state, mostly the old colony of West Jersey that went for Lincoln and North Jersey, old East Jersey, going to Douglas. Old West Jersey was strongly Quaker and was for abolitionism well before the Civil War. Old East Jersey was more influenced by Dutch NYC and even had a few elderly slaves living there when the war broke out. New Jersey's emancipation state law of 1803 provided for gradual emancipation and there were still a handful of slaves in Jersey in the census of 1860.

 

[frontrank2]

Yes, First Sergeant Frontrank, NJ voted for McClellan as he was a favorite son of the state and don't forget he would serve as NJ governor after the war and is buried in Trenton

Good point.

 

[kevikens]

Icarus, the Confederacy cared enough about Delaware to send a delegation to the First State with the formation of the Confederacy to see if Delaware might join it. If only Sussex and Kent Counties had been consulted and counted Delaware would have gone South but as the delegation discovered most of the population lived north of the C&D canal and they were oriented north to Pa. As the delegation reported to Montgomery "Delaware would not join the Confederacy". By the way, as an aside, I started my teaching career in Delaware in 1964 and it was just the year before that the state finished complying with the 1954 Brown decision. Delaware tended to pay more attention to the "deliberate" rather than the "speed" part.

 

[IcarusPhoenix]

I was actually just being snarky about poor Delaware in reference to the 1864 election.

 

[Drew]

I assure you, I'm mostly un-notable outside the state party... and depending on who I've ticked off that day, sometimes un-notable inside it. The job is not without its hazards.

This I get. Refuse to go along with foolishness and others will never cease to get even for it. Thanks.

 

[16thVA]

I'm a little surprised they used a modern map for an 1860 election. They should not have separated WV from VA before the Federal Government did so. This is what it should look like using the modern map.

 

[major bill]

The Republicans ran a smart campaign in 1860 and took the need electoral votes. Is there anyway the Democrats could have won if they had not ran two candidates? I don't see it as likely.

 

[John Winn]

I find it interesting that even if the votes for all three candidates other than Lincoln had been lumped together in a single column, Lincoln still would have won the Electoral College.

I've commented on the election in several other threads but I thought maybe I'd pop in on this one too.

Yes, Lincoln would have won the electoral vote if all other votes were combined for one candidate. However, it's also true that he barely won several key states and so still came very close to losing the election (or it could have ended up in the House). I think looking at the votes by county is more revealing as the state map makes it out as being more divided along state lines than it was.

So, could a Democrat have won ? Yes indeed. Who knows, if the weather had been different, if something distracting had happened around voting time .... might have made a few thousands difference in a few key states and the electoral vote could have easily gone differently. Lincoln lost the popular vote big time. It's one of those fun "what if" thingies.

 

[brass napoleon]

I've commented on the election in several other threads but I thought maybe I'd pop in on this one too.

Yes, Lincoln would have won the electoral vote if all other votes were combined for one candidate. However, it's also true that he barely won several key states and so still came very close to losing the election (or it could have ended up in the House). I think looking at the votes by county is more revealing as the state map makes it out as being more divided along state lines than it was.

So, could a Democrat have won ? Yes indeed. Who knows, if the weather had been different, if something distracting had happened around voting time .... might have made a few thousands difference in a few key states and the electoral vote could have easily gone differently. Lincoln lost the popular vote big time. It's one of those fun "what if" thingies.

Absolutely. Throw a big variable in like the Democrats not splitting, and it's a whole new ballgame. Remember too that Douglas aborted his campaign early when it became apparent he would lose, and instead went on a campaign to save the Union. Thus it's very likely that Douglas received far fewer votes than he otherwise would have.