During the course of the 1858 election campaign Lincoln spoke in at least two communities in Eureka’s home county of Woodford. He gave an impromptu speech in El Paso, Illinois on August 28, 1858 when a crowd gathered as he waited at the train station, and delivered another speech in Metamora on October 4. Although Woodford County was one of the counties where the Whig Party had formerly been dominant, at the time of the 1858 election it was in the Eighth Illinois Senate District and the Forty-Second Illinois House of Representatives District, both of which contained a mix of counties that had historically supported Whigs and counties where the Republican Party was now strong. Despite coming in second in Woodford County in the election of 1858, the Republican candidates for Illinois Senate and House of Representatives both ultimately won a majority in their districts and were elected. Republican George C. Bestor defeated Democrat William S. Moss in the Eighth Illinois Senate District by about 120 votes and Republican John A. McCall defeated Democrat Washington E. Cook in the Forty-Second Illinois House District, with a 453-vote advantage in Marshall and Putnam counties, which Cook’s 336-vote lead in Woodford County could not overcome.

In response to an inquiry as to his political affiliation in 1855, Lincoln wrote of his disapproval of the American Party’s position on immigrants and Catholics. During the course of the 1858 campaign, Lincoln refuted rumors that he had been a member of the American Party in an October 1858 speech at Meredosia as well as in a letter to Edward Lusk later that same month. Similar rumors also surfaced during the 1860 presidential election and Lincoln again denied any affiliation with the American Party.