1828 United States presidential election

1828 United States presidential election

← 1824 October 31 – December 2, 1828 1832 →
261 members of the Electoral College 131 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	57.3%[1] 30.4 pp
Nominee Andrew Jackson John Quincy Adams Party Democratic National Republican Alliance Nullifier[2][3] Anti-Masonic[5][6][7] Home state Tennessee Massachusetts Running mate John C. Calhoun Richard Rush Electoral vote 178 83 States carried 15 9 Popular vote 638,348[4] 507,440 Percentage 55.5% 44.0%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Jackson and Calhoun or Smith, Astra denotes those won by Adams/Rush. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election John Quincy Adams National Republican Elected President Andrew Jackson Democratic

Presidential elections were held in the United States from October 31 to December 2, 1828. Just as in the 1824 election, President John Quincy Adams of the National Republican Party faced Andrew Jackson of the Democratic Party, making the election the second rematch in presidential history. Both parties were new organizations, and this was the first presidential election their nominees contested.

With the collapse of the Federalist Party, four members of the Democratic-Republican Party, including Jackson and Adams, had sought the presidency in the 1824 election. Jackson had won a plurality (but not majority) of both the electoral vote and popular vote in the 1824 election, but had lost the contingent election that was held in the House of Representatives. In the aftermath of the election, Jackson's supporters accused Adams and Henry Clay of having reached a "corrupt bargain" in which Clay helped Adams win the contingent election in return for the position of Secretary of State. After the 1824 election, Jackson's supporters immediately began plans for a campaign in 1828, and the Democratic-Republican Party fractured into the National Republican Party and the Democratic Party during Adams's presidency.

The 1828 campaign was marked by large amounts of "mudslinging", as both parties attacked the personal qualities of the opposing party's candidate. Jackson dominated in the South and the West, aided in part by the passage of the Tariff of 1828. With the ongoing expansion of the right to vote to most white men, the election marked a dramatic expansion of the electorate, with 9.5% of Americans casting a vote for president, compared with 3.4% in 1824.^[8] Several states transitioned to a popular vote for president, leaving South Carolina and Delaware as the only states in which the legislature chose presidential electors.

Jackson decisively won the election, carrying 55.5% of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes, to Adams' 83. The election marked the rise of Jacksonian Democracy and the transition from the First Party System to the Second Party System. Historians debate the significance of the election, with many arguing that it marked the beginning of modern American politics by removing key barriers to voter participation and establishing a stable two-party system.^[9] Jackson became the first president whose home state was neither Massachusetts nor Virginia, while Adams was the second to lose re-election, following his father John Adams.