The Popular Vote Count Determinates Electability
The election in 1828 is often regarded as the first truly “democratic” exercise in the nation’s history.
It takes place between October 26 and December 2, 1828, and witnesses a profound jump in turn-out, the result of fewer restrictions on voting rights.
According to the Constitution, decisions about voter qualifications are left up to individual state legislatures — and the answer since 1788 has been “white men who own property and are 21 years of age or older.” But in 1828, many states drop the requirement to own property.
From this point on, the popular vote becomes a major factor in determining who is elected president, rather than state politicians working deals with each other to choose electors.
Within this first more “open” election, it is Jackson, the “common man of the west,” who prevails over Adams, the patrician eastern intellectual, by a comfortable margin.
The result is a fourfold increase in turn-out to 1,148,018, from only 365,833 in 1824.
In the Electoral College, the General wins, 178 to 83, sweeping the “emerging western states” by a 65-0 margin and taking the “slave states” by 105-9 – while losing only in Delaware and splitting Maryland.
He also cuts into Adams’s hold on the northeast, winning Pennsylvania 28-0 and, with Van Buren’s help, taking New York by 20-16.