You are incorrect. Lincoln won an absolute majority of the votes in enough states to win the election even had the Democrats run a single candidate. The only states that Lincoln won with less than 50% vote were California and Oregon.
Lincoln-1865908 Republican
Douglas-1380202 Northern Democrat
Breckinridge-848019 Southern Democrat.
Remember I am looking at it as if ONLY the public votes counted without an Electoral College (a Democrat dream).
If ONE Democratic candidate ran and got this many votes, he beats Lincoln with a total of 2228221.
Probably more if South Carolina didn’t have a real weird election process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860
I have long argued that Democrats could have won in 1860 the same way they won in 1856 -- by remaining united in the face of split opposition parties.
In 1856 Pennsylvania's Doughface Democrat James Buchanan easily defeated the now split candidates of the old Whig party: Northern Republican Fremont and Southern American ("Know Nothing") Millard Fillmore, even though combined they received more popular votes.
In 1860 a united Democrat party would receive more popular votes than Republicans, but also benefit from a band-wagon effect to help it reach majorities in Border South & North states (i.e., Kentucky, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana)
But none of that happened because Deep South Fire Eaters engineered a split-up of Democrats making Southern Democrats now a minority within the minority Democrat opposition.
That's how Southern Democrats went from the cat bird's seat in 1856 to out of left field in 1860.
But I say: it didn't have to be that way.