Editing William Henry Harrison (section)

===1840 presidential campaign===
{{main|William Henry Harrison 1840 presidential campaign}}
[[File:ElectoralCollege1840.svg|thumb|upright=0.85|right|1840 Electoral Vote Map]]
Harrison faced incumbent Van Buren as the sole Whig candidate in the 1840 election. The Whigs saw in Harrison a born southerner and war hero, who would contrast well with the aloof, uncaring, and aristocratic Van Buren.<ref name= "WHH Campaigns and Elections"/> He was chosen over more controversial members of the party, such as Clay and Webster; his campaign highlighted his military record and focused on the weak U.S. economy caused by the [[Panic of 1837]].{{sfn|Carnes|Mieczkowski|2001|p=39}}

The Whigs blamed Van Buren for the economic problems and nicknamed him "Van Ruin".{{sfn|Carnes|Mieczkowski|2001|p=39}} The Democrats, in turn, ridiculed the elder Harrison by calling him "Granny Harrison, the petticoat general", because he resigned from the army before the War of 1812 ended. They noted for the voters what Harrison's name would be when spelled backwards: "No Sirrah". They cast him as a provincial, out-of-touch old man who would rather "[[log cabin campaign|sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider]]" than attend to the administration of the country. This strategy backfired when Harrison and running mate [[John Tyler]] adopted the log cabin and hard cider as campaign symbols. Their campaign used the symbols on banners and posters and created bottles of hard cider shaped like log cabins, all to connect the candidates to the "common man".{{sfn|Carnes|Mieczkowski|2001|pp=39–40}} Freehling relates that, "One bitter pro-Van Buren paper lamented after his defeat, 'We have been sung down, lied down and drunk down.' In one sentence, this described the new American political process."<ref name= "WHH - American Franchise">{{cite web|url=https://millercenter.org/president/harrison/the-american-franchise|first=William|last=Freehling|title=William Harrison: The American Franchise|publisher=University of Virginia Miller Center|location=Charlottesville, Virginia|date=October 4, 2016|access-date=January 22, 2022}}</ref>

Harrison came from a wealthy, slaveholding Virginia family, yet his campaign promoted him as a humble frontiersman in the style popularized by [[Andrew Jackson]], while presenting Van Buren as a wealthy elitist.{{sfn|Carnes|Mieczkowski|2001|pp=39–40}} A memorable example was the [[Gold Spoon Oration]] that Pennsylvania's Whig representative [[Charles Ogle (politician)|Charles Ogle]] delivered in the House, ridiculing Van Buren's elegant White House lifestyle and lavish spending.<ref name=Bradley-70-71>{{cite book|author=Bradley, Elizabeth L.|title=Knickerbocker: The Myth behind New York|url=https://archive.org/details/knickerbockermyt0000brad |url-access=registration|location=New Brunswick, NJ|publisher=Rivergate|pages=[https://archive.org/details/knickerbockermyt0000brad/page/70 70]–71|isbn=978-0-8135-4516-5|year=2009|access-date=November 9, 2021}}</ref> The Whigs invented a chant in which people would spit tobacco juice as they chanted "wirt-wirt", and this also exhibited the difference between candidates from the time of the election:<ref name= "WHH Campaigns and Elections"/> 
  
{{poemquote|
Old Tip he wore a homespun coat, he had no ruffled shirt: wirt-wirt,
But Matt he has the golden plate, and he's a little squirt: wirt-wirt!}}

The Whigs boasted of Harrison's military record and his reputation as the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. The campaign slogan "[[Tippecanoe and Tyler too|Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too]]" became one of the most famous in American politics.{{sfn|Carnes|Mieczkowski|2001|p=41}} While Van Buren campaigned from the White House, Harrison was on the campaign trail, entertaining with his impressions of Indian war whoops, and took people's minds off the nation's economic troubles. In June 1840, a Harrison rally at the site of the Tippecanoe battle drew 60,000 people.<ref name= "WHH Campaigns and Elections"/> The Village of North Bend, Ohio, as well as the alumni of [[Ohio State University]] claim that the state's use of the nickname "Buckeyes" began with Harrison's campaign message.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.northbendohio.org/Buckeyes.html|title=Buckeyes?|publisher=Village of North Bend}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.osu.edu/alumni/news/ohio-state-alumni-magazine/issues/september-october-2016/tippecanoe-and-buckeyes-too|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220528074916/https://www.osu.edu/alumni/news/ohio-state-alumni-magazine/issues/september-october-2016/tippecanoe-and-buckeyes-too/|archive-date=2022-05-28|url-status=dead|title=Tippecanoe and Buckeyes Too|date=August 29, 2016|publisher=Ohio State Univ. Alumni Assoc.|access-date=January 21, 2022}}</ref> Harrison's campaign was the victim of what is described as the nation's first "[[October surprise]]." Just days before voters went to the polls, Van Buren's Justice Department alleged that Whig Party officials had committed "the most stupendous and atrocious fraud," when they paid Pennsylvanians to travel to New York to vote for Whig candidates two years earlier.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/07/jack-smiths-october-surprise-was-not-that-surprising-and-that-is-the-problem/#more-224035|title=Jack Smith's October Surprise|last=Turley|first=Jonathan|date=October 7, 2024|website=Res Ipsa Loquitur|publisher=Jonathan Turley|access-date=October 7, 2024}}</ref>

Voter turnout shot to a spectacular 80%, 20 points higher than the previous election.<ref name= "WHH - American Franchise"/> Harrison won a landslide victory in the Electoral College, 234 electoral votes to Van Buren's 60. The popular vote margin was much closer, at fewer than 150,000 votes, though he carried nineteen of the twenty-six states.{{sfn|Carnes|Mieczkowski|2001|p=41}}{{sfn|Gugin|St. Clair|2006|p=25}}