In November, Harrison swamped Van Buren, carrying nineteen of the twenty-six states. The president did manage to eke out a victory in Illinois, capturing 51 percent of the votes to Harrison’s 49 percent. Hard times, Van Buren’s bland personality, and the vogue for egalitarianism combined to doom the incumbent. His victory in Illinois, the only free state he carried other than New Hampshire, apparently owed much to immigrants who worked on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. David Davis, a Whig friend of Lincoln who narrowly lost a bid for the state senate, complained that “if the Irish did not vote more than 3 times we could easily carry the State.” Davis added that the “Irish vote along the line of the canal increased (at the late election) most wonderfully, and in nearly every other county of the State, the Whig vote has enlarged greatly.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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