National Republican Governor Levi Lincoln Jr. was re-elected to a sixth term in office over Democrat Marcus Morton.

David Henshaw's Statesman campaigned vigorously for Morton, upbraiding Lincoln as a renegade Republican who had accepted support of the Essex Junto and lauding Morton's support for the Warren Bridge Company.

Theodore Lyman II's rival Democratic Evening Bulletin made no effort on Morton's behalf.

[1] Lincoln took little interest in the election, focusing on new projects for railroads and Massachusetts's claim for war debts against the federal government.

Morton wrote to John C. Calhoun to express his view that the Jackson administration had cost him several thousand votes by dismissing Henshaw supporters from federal office to placate the aristocratic Lyman wing of the party.