The presidential election of 1876 did not go as planned. Republicans held the presidency and the Senate, as they had done since the Civil War (1861–1865). The Democrats, who had captured the House of Representatives in the midterm elections of 1874, approached the new election season with vigor. Recognizing that rumors of corruption had weakened the Republican Party’s coherence, they placed the governor of New York, a man with notable anti-corruption credentials, at the head of their ticket. The Republicans chose as their candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, then governor of Ohio, as the least objectionable of the candidates they could field.