Again, Jackson's considerable influence prevailed, and Johnson received the required two-thirds vote after New York Senator Silas Wright prevailed upon non-delegate Edward Rucker to cast the 15 votes of the absent Tennessee delegation in Johnson's favor.[137][136]

1836 electoral vote results
Van Buren's competitors in the election of 1836 were three members of the Whig Party, which remained a loose coalition bound by mutual opposition to Jackson's anti-bank policies. Lacking the party unity or organizational strength to field a single ticket or define a single platform,[137] the Whigs ran several regional candidates in hopes of sending the election to the House of Representatives.[138] The three candidates were Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and William Henry Harrison of Indiana. Besides endorsing internal improvements and a national bank, the Whigs tried to tie Democrats to abolitionism and sectional tension, and attacked Jackson for "acts of aggression and usurpation of power".[139]
Southern voters represented the biggest potential impediment to Van Buren's quest for the presidency, as many were apprehensive at the prospect of a Northern president.