Initially divided by pro-slavery Chivalrists and anti-slavery Free Soilers, by 1857, the party had split into the Lecompton and Anti-Lecompton factions.

The violence between supporting and opposition forces led to the period known as Bleeding Kansas.

During the 1859 general elections, Lecompton Democrats voted Latham, who had briefly lived in the American South, as their nominee for governor.

The infant Republican Party, running in its first gubernatorial election, selected businessman Leland Stanford as its nominee.

To make matters more complicated, after the election, Senator David C. Broderick, an Anti-Lecompton Democrat, was killed in a duel by slavery supporter and former state Supreme Court Justice David Terry on September 13.