alternatehistory.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Thompson

(We've discussed the 1824 election many times but apparently never him as a potential candidate.)

"Thompson [as Secretary of the Navy] ingratiated himself so fully to President James Monroe that when Justice Brockholst Livingston died in March 1823, the president refused to consider anyone else for the position, even though Thompson took four months to accept. The delay was caused largely by presidential politics, and led to a split with Thompson's close friend Van Buren. The Bucktails [Van Buren's faction of the New York Democratic-Republicans] supported Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford to succeed Monroe, but Thompson was so opposed to Crawford that he became a candidate himself to attract other Bucktails away from Crawford. He wooed Van Buren, implying that the latter might secure the vacant Court seat. Monroe, however, had no intention of appointing Van Buren, and when Thompson's presidential gamesmanship ran aground, he took the seat on the Supreme Court."--American National Biography article "Smith Thompson"

Maybe if Crawford had died by 1823 (a stroke a year or so earlier than in OTL--and fatal) Van Buren might have backed Thompson for president. (Yes, even if the latter accepted the Supreme Court position--some nineteenth-century justices like McLean were quite openly presidential candidates.) If Thompson finishes among the top three candidates (with Jackson and Adams), the election as in OTL goes to the House where I wouldn't rule him out--maybe he can outdo even Adams in promises to Clay. Whether Thompson would in fact make the top three I do not know, but his suport of the admission of Missouri as a slave state [1] might help him in the South, while Van Buren's backing could enable him to carry New York. (Unlike Crawford in OTL he would have no "health issue" with which to contend.)

[1] "In the cabinet, he was so distressed by the international slave trade--'this inhuman and disgraceful traffic'--that he was willing to grant the right of mutual search by British and United States warships to curtail it. On the other hand, he took what Secretary of State John Quincy Adams called 'the slave-sided' position on the Missouri enabling bill, which allowed Missouri's admission to the Union as a slave state." American National Biography article "Smith Thompson."
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