The Presidential election of 1860 was a four-way race among Republican Abraham Lincoln, Democrats Stephen A. Douglas and John Breckinridge, and Constitutional Union party nominee John A. Bell. Lincoln won only 40 percent of the popular vote. But as this list shows, he won 180 out of 303 electoral votes, including most of the North. Douglas came in second, but garnered only 12 electoral votes.
When a person votes for a Presidential candidate in the popular election, they’re actually voting for the slate of electors representing their choice for President. Those electors meet in their state and vote for President. They send their state’s electoral votes to the President of the United States Senate and Congress counts the electoral votes in a joint session of Congress.
