George Washington Cass, William McClelland, and Hendrick Bradley Wright unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination.

Hartranft had become an important figure in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the United States during the American Civil War.

A colonel in the Union Army who was awarded the U.S. Medal of Honor for the valor he displayed on July 21, 1861, during the First Battle of Bull Run, he rose through the ranks to become a major general, and was also the United States Army officer who read the death warrant to Mary Surratt, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Lewis Powell before they were executed on July 7, 1865, for conspiring to assassinate American President Abraham Lincoln.

[1] Post-war, he was elected twice as Pennsylvania's auditor general before choosing to run for the governor's office.

[2][3] After winning the 1872 gubernatorial election, Hartranft was inaugurated as Pennsylvania's 17th governor on January 21, 1873.