The popular wisdom was that this election was primarily an Adams vs Crawford affair as the two agreed on virtually everything economically. Adams portrayed himself as the most immensely qualified citing his very long career in the diplomatic corps and his incredible obvious intelligence and formal education, while Crawford countered that that his 'noble upbringing' made him out of touch with the common man. Jackson argued Adams would rule as a monarch.
Crawford meanwhile, accentuated his humble upbringing and his and his relatively uncontroversial tenures as Secretary of War and later Secretary of the Treasury. In the latter role, he helped implement the new tariffs that put the federal budget on a more stable path, portraying himself as the best of both Clay and Adams with the drawbacks of neither. However, Crawford suffered a major stroke and was rendered temporarily blind.
Clay ran on the strength of his popular term as Speaker, his accomplishments tangling with even the messiest issues of the day securing the Missouri compromise, garnering popular support for tariffs and having both frontier bona fides AND federal policy bona fides, making him uniquely situated to address the wide array of issues facing the nation, while opponents say he has no foreign policy bona fides making him poorly suited to dealing with the Spanish.
Jackson surprised everyone by awakening popular resentment for what had been seen as settled issues, his violent opposition to the National Bank and his hardliner position of Indian Removal made him popular amongst the poorer farmers in the West and South, while his signaling that he might roll back tariffs appealed to plantation owners in Virginia. He is also the only candidate openly suggesting an aggressive western expansion instead of infrastructure improvements in the current nation.
There's almost no way we get a winner outright who does b8 like?!