In the Presidential election , Whig General Zachary Taylor defeated Democratic former Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan and the Free Soil candidate , former President Martin Van Buren . Taylor won most of the Northeast and several Southern states , giving him a fairly comfortable majority in both the electoral and popular vote . One-term incumbent Democratic President James K. Polk chose to retire rather than seek re-election ( becoming the first elected president to do so ) , and Cass defeated Supreme Court Justice Levi Woodbury and Secretary of State James Buchanan on the fourth ballot at the 1848 Democratic National Convention . Van Buren , the former Democratic President , ran against Cass for political reasons ( Cass was a prominent supporter of slavery ) and possibly for personal reasons ( Cass helped defeat Van Buren 's 1844 bid for the Democratic nomination ) . Taylor was recruited by the Whigs to replicate the success of the Whig 's only previous successful candidate , General William Henry Harrison , and he easily triumphed over other Whig candidates . Taylor 's win made him the last President to win election as neither a Democrat nor a Republican
1848 Democratic National Convention
1848 Democratic National Convention
1848 United States elections