In the presidential election , Democratic former senator Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeated Whig General Winfield Scott . Pierce won the popular vote by a margin of seven percent , and dominated the electoral college . John P. Hale of the Free Soil Party also took about five percent of the popular vote . Pierce won on the 49th ballot of the 1852 Democratic National Convention , defeating 1848 nominee Lewis Cass , former Secretary of State James Buchanan , former Secretary of War William L. Marcy , and Senator Stephen A. Douglas frp , Illinois . Incumbent Whig president Millard Fillmore ran for a full term , but the 1852 Whig National Convention chose Scott , another popular general similar to former Whig presidents William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor . Fillmore became the first incumbent president to lose his party 's presidential nomination . Scott was the last Whig presidential candidate , as the party collapsed during the 1850s . However , this election was also the last time a Democratic candidate would win a majority of the popular and electoral vote until Franklin D. Roosevelt did so in 1932
1852 Democratic National Convention
1852 Democratic National Convention
1852 United States elections