Presidential election of 1868

United States presidential election, 1868

← 1864 November 3, 1868 1872 →
All 294 electoral votes of the Electoral College 148 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	78.1% 4.3 pp
Nominee Ulysses S. Grant Horatio Seymour Party Republican Democratic Home state Illinois New York Running mate Schuyler Colfax Francis P. Blair, Jr. Electoral vote 214 80 States carried 26 8 Popular vote 3,013,421 2,706,829 Percentage 52.7% 47.3%
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Grant/Colfax, blue denotes those won by Seymour/Blair, green denotes those states that had not yet been restored to the Union and which were therefore ineligible to vote. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election Andrew Johnson Democratic Elected President Ulysses S. Grant Republican

Andrew Johnson
Democratic

Ulysses S. Grant
Republican

The United States presidential election of 1868 was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1868. It was the first presidential election to take place after the American Civil War, during the period referred to as Reconstruction. As three of the former Confederate states (Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia) were not yet restored to the Union, their electors could not vote in the election.

The incumbent President, Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency in 1865 following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, was unpopular and failed to receive the Democratic presidential nomination. By 1868, Johnson had alienated many of his constituents and had been impeached by Congress. Although Johnson kept his office, his presidency was crippled. After numerous ballots, the Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour to take on the Republican candidate, Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was one of the most popular men in the North due to his efforts in concluding the Civil War successfully for the Union.

Although Seymour was buried in the electoral college, he gave Grant a good race for the popular vote. In addition to his appeal in the North, Grant benefited from votes among the newly enfranchised freedmen in the South, while the temporary political disfranchisement of many Southern whites helped Republican margins. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in every Northern or Reconstructed Southern state, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act. Every state except Florida used popular votes to determine electors for the Electoral College vote.