In the middle of a war that had already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, the North held a real election anyway — and Lincoln's opponent ran on ending it.
The 1864 election was held on November 8, in the middle of the Civil War — an almost unheard-of act for any nation to hold a real, contested national election while fighting for its own survival. Earlier that summer, with the war stalemated and casualties mounting, even Lincoln privately believed he would lose.
Only the Union states voted. Twenty-five states cast ballots, including Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada — all admitted to the Union during the war itself. The eleven Confederate states, having seceded, held no vote at all. Louisiana and Tennessee did hold elections under Union military occupation, but Congress refused to count their electoral votes given their unresolved status.
Lincoln's opponent was George B. McClellan, the very general Lincoln had fired in 1862 for being too cautious to pursue Robert E. Lee's army. Running as the Democratic nominee, McClellan was one of the most prominent Union generals of the war challenging the sitting wartime president.
The official Democratic platform, largely written by 'Copperhead' Clement Vallandigham, declared the war a failure and called for an immediate end to fighting and a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. McClellan himself publicly rejected that peace plank in his acceptance letter — even as he ran on the ticket built around it, splitting his own campaign's message.
Lincoln's political fortunes changed almost overnight when Union General William Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864. The victory, arriving just two months before the vote, undercut the Democrats' argument that the war was unwinnable and reenergized Northern support for continuing the fight.
For the first time in American history, soldiers in the field were allowed to cast absentee ballots in large numbers. Of about 40,000 counted military votes, roughly 76% went to Lincoln versus 23% for McClellan — the Union's own fighting men overwhelmingly rejecting the peace-with-the-Confederacy platform. Kentucky was the only state where soldiers favored McClellan.
Lincoln won in a landslide: 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 21, and about 55% of the popular vote. McClellan carried only Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey. The result guaranteed Lincoln — not a rival elected on a peace platform — would remain in office to see the war through to the Union's final victory.