1834 Indiana gubernatorial election

The 1834 Indiana gubernatorial election took place on August 4, 1834, under the provisions of the Constitution of Indiana. It was the seventh gubernatorial election in the State of Indiana. The incumbent Whig governor Noah Noble defeated Democratic former state representative James G. Read. The election took place concurrently with elections for lieutenant governor and members of the Indiana General Assembly. This was the first gubernatorial election in Indiana contested on a partisan basis.

Noble was elected in 1831, defeating Read and outgoing Lieutenant Governor Milton Stapp in a three-way race to succeed the retiring governor James B. Ray. In office, he aligned himself with the Anti-Jacksonian faction in state politics that in 1834 organized itself as the Whig Party. The Jacksonians, now calling themselves "Democratic Republicans" or "Democrats," nominated Read at a state convention in Indianapolis. Noble benefited from rapid population growth and economic expansion in the early 1830s that more than provided for the state's meagre expenses. He defeated Read by a convincing margin, carrying 51 of the state's 69 counties.

This was the first gubernatorial election of the Second Party System in Indiana. The preceding election of 1831, and all previous elections, had been contested on a nonpartisan basis. Both candidates campaigned personally and with gusto. Noble benefited from the support of Democrats who favored the candidacy of a Westerner such as Richard Mentor Johnson for president in 1836 as well as the united support of the Whigs. Whigs interpreted Noble's victory as foreshadowing the defeat of Martin Van Buren in the coming presidential election. (Indiana's electoral votes would in fact go to the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, who nevertheless lost the national election to Van Buren.)

Whig nomination
The Whig Party in Indiana grew out of the Anti-Jacksonian faction who prior to 1834 called themselves Adams or Clay men. They were sometimes called National Republicans as one faction of the Jeffersonian Republican Party that split during the contentious 1824 United States presidential election. The national Whig movement was a conglomerate of American System nationalists, Nullifiers or state rights men, and Anti-Masons opposed to the influence of secret societies that supposedly undermined republican egalitarianism. In Indiana, National Republicans were by far the largest element of the new party; the Anti-Masonic candidates had received almost no votes in the state in 1832 United States presidential election and the Nullifiers none at all.

Indiana Whigs did not hold a state convention ahead of the gubernatorial election. Noble was widely acknowledged as the favorite candidate of the Whigs but still saw benefit in maintaining the public appearance of nonpartisanship. His campaign was supported by the Whig partisan press alongside Lieutenant Governor David Wallace and the Whig legislative slate.

Democratic nomination
Delegates from forty counties met at Indianapolis on December 9, 1833, to nominate a candidate for governor. The call for a state convention of Hoosier Jacksonians had been issued by the editor of the Indiana Democrat, Alexander F. Morrison, who declared the "paramount interests" of the country demanded "concert of action" among loyal Jacksonians. Calling themselves the "Democratic Republican" convention, the gathering was the first of its kind in Indiana politics. (In earlier elections, candidates for governor had prevailed on friendly editors to place their names before the public without recourse to party conventions.) James G. Read was nominated on the second ballot with 50 out of 72 votes, defeating Jacob B. Lowe of Monroe County. Lowe then moved that the nomination be made unanimous in order to reflect the unity of Hoosier Democrats heading into the spring campaign.

Campaign
While Noble wrote to Read in April to propose that neither candidate actively canvass votes, this agreement was largely ignored and soon forgotten. As both men were broadly in agreement on the major issues before the state, the campaign centered on issues of character. Whigs trumpeted Noble's nonpartisanship in awarding half of official appointments to members of the opposition party and savaged Read for having been nominated by a gathering of corrupt office-seekers and partisan apparatchiks. Democrats countered that Noble's first election had been secured by the influence of "political aristocrats" and party managers, contrasted with the more democratic mode of a state convention. Both parties accused the opposition of appealing for votes on a partisan basis and suggested that discerning voters would doubtless judge their candidate the more deserving choice.

Results
Noble defeated Read by an overwhelming margin of more than 9,000 votes. He carried 51 counties to 18 for Read, the latter of whose support was concentrated in the southern and western part of the state. Democrats attributed Noble's victory to crossover voting stemming from the governor's personal popularity, while Whigs interpreted the results as a show of support for Whig policies.