The 1852 United States presidential election was the 17th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852. Democrat Franklin Pierce, a former Senator from New Hampshire, defeated Whig nominee Commanding General of the Army Winfield Scott and Free Soil nominee former Representative John P. Hale.
Results[]
When American voters went to the polls, Pierce won the Electoral College in a landslide; Scott won only the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Vermont, while the Free Soil vote collapsed to less than half of what Martin Van Buren had earned in the previous election, with the party taking no states.
As a result of the devastating defeat and the growing tensions within the party between pro-slavery Southerners and anti-slavery Northerners, the Whig Party quickly fell apart after the 1852 election and ceased to exist. Some Southern Whigs would join the Democratic Party, and many Northern Whigs would help to form the new Republican Party in 1854.
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote | Vice presidential candidate | Home state | Electoral vote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Percentage | |||||||
| Franklin Pierce | Democratic | New Hampshire | 1,607,510 | 50.84% | 254 | William R. King | Alabama | 254 |
| Winfield Scott | Whig | New Jersey | 1,386,942 | 43.87% | 42 | William Alexander Graham | North Carolina | 42 |
| John P. Hale | Free Soil | New Hampshire | 155,210 | 4.91% | 0 | George Washington Julian | Indiana | 0 |
| Others | 12,168 | 0.38% | 0 | Others | 0 | |||
| Total | 3,161,830 | 100.00% | 296 | Total | 296 | |||
| Needed to win | 149 | Needed to win | 149 | |||||
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