1848 United States presidential election in Indiana

1848 United States presidential election in Indiana

November 7, 1848
Turnout	78.5% 6.2 pp
Nominee Lewis Cass Zachary Taylor Martin Van Buren Party Democratic Whig Free Soil Home state Michigan Louisiana New York Running mate William O. Butler Millard Fillmore Charles Francis Adams Sr. Electoral vote 12 0 0 Popular vote 74,692 70,165 8,100 Percentage 48.82% 45.87% 5.30%
County results Cass   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Taylor   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%
President before election James K. Polk Democratic Elected President Zachary Taylor Whig

A presidential election was held in Indiana on November 7, 1848, as part of the 1848 United States presidential election. The Democratic ticket of the senior U.S. senator from Michigan Lewis Cass and the former U.S. representative from Kentucky's 3rd congressional district William O. Butler defeated the Whig ticket of major general Zachary Taylor and the New York state comptroller Millard Fillmore. The Free Soil ticket of the former president Martin Van Buren and the Massachusetts senator Charles Francis Adams Sr. finished a distant third. Taylor defeated Cass in the national election with 163 electoral votes.

General election

Summary

Result for the Free Soil Party electors in each Indiana county

Indiana chose 12 electors in a statewide general election. Nineteenth-century presidential elections used a form of block voting that allowed voters to modify the electoral list nominated by a political party before submitting their ballots. Because voters elected each member of the Electoral College individually, electors nominated by the same party often received differing numbers of votes as a consequence of voter rolloff, split-ticket voting, or electoral fusion. This table compares the votes for the most popular elector pledged to each ticket, to give an approximate sense of the statewide result.

1848 United States presidential election in Indiana

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Lewis Cass William O. Butler	74,692	48.82	1.25
	Whig	Zachary Taylor Millard Fillmore	70,175	45.87	2.55
	Free Soil	Martin Van Buren Charles Francis Adams Sr.	8,102	5.30	5.30
	Write-in		18	0.01	0.01
Total votes			152,987	100.00

Results

1848 United States presidential election in Indiana

Party		Candidate	Votes
	Democratic	Nathaniel Albertson	74,692
	Democratic	Cyrus L. Dunham	74,692
	Democratic	Graham N. Fitch	74,691
	Democratic	Daniel Mace	74,691
	Democratic	William McCarty	74,691
	Democratic	James Ritchey	74,691
	Democratic	Andrew J. Harlan	74,686
	Democratic	George W. Carr	74,685
	Democratic	Charles H. Test	74,685
	Democratic	E. M. Chamberlain	74,680
	Democratic	Robert Dale Owen	74,675
	Democratic	James M. Hanna	73,912
	Whig	Thomas D. Walpole	70,175
	Whig	Milton Gregg	70,165
	Whig	David P. Holloway	70,165
	Whig	John S. Davis	70,164
	Whig	Edward W. McGaughey	70,163
	Whig	Lovell Rousseau	70,163
	Whig	James F. Suit	70,162
	Whig	Daniel D. Pratt	70,157
	Whig	David Kilgore	70,151
	Whig	Joseph G. Marshall	70,149
	Whig	Godlove S. Orth	70,145
	Whig	James E. Blythe	70,135
	Free Soil	John R. Cravens	8,102
	Free Soil	Milton Short	8,100
	Free Soil	Ovid Butler	8,099
	Free Soil	George W. Julian	8,099
	Free Soil	Albert G. Coffin	8,098
	Free Soil	Samuel A. Huff	8,098
	Free Soil	Joseph L. Jernegan	8,097
	Free Soil	Nathaniel Little	8,092
	Free Soil	Henry Leavitt Ellsworth	8,090
	Free Soil	John H. Bradley	8,088
	Free Soil	Daniel Worth	7,195
	Independent Democrat	Henry Secrest	771
	Independent Free Soil	Lewis Beecher	449
	Independent Free Soil	Joseph Morrow	419
	Independent Whig	John Pitcher	76
	Unpledged	A. Bassett	14
	Unpledged	E. Beach	14
	Unpledged	E. Beardsley	14
	Unpledged	H. H. Beardsley	14
	Unpledged	M. A. Brodrick	14
	Unpledged	N. F. Brodrick	14
	Unpledged	D. W. Gray	14
	Unpledged	J. Frush	14
	Unpledged	Joseph H. Leeper	14
	Unpledged	W. H. Marvin	14
	Unpledged	J. Primley	14
	Unpledged	William Proctor	14
	Unpledged	Samuel A. Taffee	6
	Unpledged	A. C. Cooper	4
	Unpledged	Samuel Ball	3
	Unpledged	Stephen S. Harding	3
	Unpledged	Jesse Lynch Holman	3
	Unpledged	Roger Ide	3
	Unpledged	Squire H. Knapp	3
	Unpledged	John M. Patrick	3
	Unpledged	Isaiah W. Robinson	3
	Unpledged	Thomas Smith	3
	Unpledged	George Walker	3
	Unpledged	Jonas Walker	3
	Unpledged	Richard Workman	3
	Unpledged	James L. Yater	3
	Unpledged	George B. Arnold	1
	Unpledged	Jonathan Blanchard	1
	Unpledged	John Bufferm	1
	Unpledged	Samuel H. Davis	1
	Unpledged	Henry B. Evans	1
	Unpledged	Thomas Hogue	1
	Unpledged	A. Hose	1
	Unpledged	William B. Ogdon	1
	Unpledged	Benjamin Dwight Sheldon	1
	Unpledged	Levi F. Torrey	1
Total			≈152,987

See also

• United States presidential elections in Indiana

Bibliography

• "1848 Electoral College Results". National Archives. Retrieved October 7, 2025.
• Lampi, Philip J. (n.d.). "Electoral College". A New Nation Votes. American Antiquarian Society. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
• Madison, James H. (1986). The Indiana Way: A State History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Ratcliffe, Donald J. (Spring 2014). "Popular Preferences in the Presidential Election of 1824". Journal of the Early Republic. 34 (1): 45–77. JSTOR 24486931.
• Riker, Dorothy; Thornbrough, Gayle, eds. (1960). Indiana Election Returns, 1816–1851. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau.