Before he became the 16th President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln had to first win the Republican party nomination. His competition was stiff – and vocal. Lincoln had made his moderate politics known during what is called The Great Debates. It was fortunate then, that he basically sat silent while his competitors went on to alienate their potential voters.
The competitors were William H. Seward (the purported favorite) who concerned delegates by being aligned with the radical wing of the party. Salmon P. Chase was a former Democrat and moreover had a past opposition to tariffs. Edward Bates had a double whammy in that he was confusingly contradictory in wanting to extend slavery into additional states as well as backing equal constitutional rights for every citizen.
So Lincoln took the Republican nomination, essentially without campaigning and simply letting the other three candidates for the Republican nomination knock each other
out of the race.