The incumbent Millard Fillmore, who had acceded…

The incumbent Millard Fillmore, who had acceded to the presidency after the death of President Zachary Taylor in 1850, is one of three presidential candidates of a divided Whig Party in its last national election in 1852.

Due to Fillmore's support of the Compromise of 1850 and his enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, he is popular in the South but opposed by many Northern Whigs.

On the 53rd ballot of the 1852 Whig National Convention, Scott defeats Fillmore to clinch the party's nomination.

The Democrats are divided among four major candidates, who had trade leads through the first forty-eight ballots of the 1852 Democratic National Convention.

On the 49th ballot, dark horse candidate Franklin Pierce had won his party's nomination.

The Free Soil Party, a third party opposed to the extension of slavery into the territories, nominates Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire.

Pierce, a political unknown, sports side-whiskers more modest than those worn by the elderly Scott.