How did the whigs hope to win the 1836 election?

The Whig party won the election in 1840 because Democratic President Van Buren was blamed for the way he handled the Panic of 1837 and for his continuation of Jackson's Indian removal policy. The economy was still shaky in 1840 and VanBuren was tied to the old administration. Also he was a New Yorker and did not relate well to the frontier farmers. The Whigs portrayed him as a corrupt aristocrat.

The Whigs portrayed Harrison , who had a record as an Indian fighter and had lived on the frontier, as a new version of Andrew Jackson. (They ignored the fact that his father was an aristocrat from Virginia and had signed the Declaration of Independence)