Winning a plurality for the first time, Republicans benefited from multiple factors including the collapse of the nativist American Party, sectional strife in the Democratic Party, Northern voter dissatisfaction with the infamous March 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, political exposure of Democrats to chaotic violence in Kansas amid repeated attempts to impose slavery against the express will of a majority of its settlers, and a sharp decline in President Buchanan's popularity due to his perceived fecklessness. In Pennsylvania, his home state, Republicans made particularly large gains.