Page "Abraham Lincoln" Paragraph 41

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party.

He was the first president from the Republican Party.

Winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North and West, no ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.

Lincoln received 1, 866, 452 votes, Douglas 1, 376, 957 votes, Breckinridge 849, 781 votes, and Bell 588, 789 votes.

Turnout was 82. 2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon.

Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln.

Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South.

Although Lincoln won only a plurality of the popular vote, his victory in the electoral college was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123.

There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the Electoral College.