[54] He received only 47 electoral votes, from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, in the November 1836 election, trailing both Granger and the Democratic candidate, Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. Harrison was the leading Whig candidate for president, but he lost to Van Buren.[53] The presidential election was settled by the Electoral College, but for the only time in American history, the vice-presidential election was decided by the Senate, which selected Johnson over Granger on the first ballot.[55]

National political figure
Tyler had been drawn into Virginia politics as a U.S. senator. From October 1829 to January 1830, he served as a member of the state constitutional convention, a role he had been reluctant to accept. The original Virginia Constitution gave outsize influence to the state's more conservative eastern counties, as it allocated an equal number of legislators to each county regardless of population and granted suffrage only to property owners. The convention gave the more populous and liberal counties of western Virginia an opportunity to expand their influence. A slaveowner from eastern Virginia, Tyler supported the existing system, but largely remained on the sidelines during the debate, not wishing to alienate any of the state's political factions. 