The platform also called for an end to anti-slavery agitation and U.S. "ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico".[35] President Pierce hoped for re-nomination, while Senator Stephen A. Douglas also loomed as a strong candidate.
Buchanan led on the first ballot, supported by powerful Senators John Slidell, Jesse Bright, and Thomas F. Bayard, who presented Buchanan as an experienced leader appealing to the North and South. He won the nomination after seventeen ballots. He was joined on the ticket by John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, placating supporters of Pierce and Douglas, also allies of Breckinridge.[36]
Buchanan faced two candidates in the general election: former Whig President Millard Fillmore ran as the American Party (or "Know-Nothing") candidate, while John C. Frémont ran as the Republican nominee. Buchanan did not actively campaign, but he wrote letters and pledged to uphold the Democratic platform. In the election, he carried every slave state except for Maryland, as well as five slavery-free states, including his home state of Pennsylvania.[36] He won 45 percent of the popular vote and decisively won the electoral vote, taking 174 of 296 votes. His election made him the first president from Pennsylvania.
