The United States presidential election of 1956 saw a popular Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully run for re-election. The 1956 election was a rematch of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier.

Incumbent President Eisenhower was popular, but had health conditions that became a quiet issue. Stevenson remained popular with a core of liberal Democrats but held no office and had no real base. He (and Eisenhower) largely ignored the civil rights issue. Eisenhower had ended the Korean War and the nation was prosperous, so a landslide for the charismatic Eisenhower was never in doubt.

This was the last presidential election prior to the statehood of Alaska and Hawaii, who would first take part as states in the 1960 presidential election.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Republican candidates

• Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States from Kansas

<gallery> Image:Eisenhower official.jpg|President Dwight D. Eisenhower of Kansas </gallery>

As 1956 began there was some speculation that Eisenhower would not run for a second term, primarily due to concerns about his health. In 1955 Eisenhower had suffered a serious heart attack, and in early 1956 he underwent surgery for ileitis. However, he quickly recovered after both incidents, and after being cleared by his doctors he decided to run for a second term. Given "Ike's" enormous popularity, he was renominated with no opposition at the 1956 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California.

The only question among Republicans was whether Vice-President Richard Nixon would once again be Eisenhower's running mate. There is some evidence that Eisenhower would have preferred another, less-partisan and controversial running mate, such as Governor Christian Herter of Massachusetts, and according to some historians (such as Stephen Ambrose), Eisenhower privately offered Nixon another position in his cabinet, such as Secretary of Defense. However, Harold Stassen was the only Republican to publicly oppose Nixon's renomination for Vice-President, and Nixon remained highly popular among the GOP's rank-and-file voters. Nixon had also reshaped the vice-presidency, using it as a platform to campaign for Republican state and local candidates across the country, and these candidates came to his defense. In the spring of 1956 Eisenhower publicly announced that Nixon would again be his running mate, and Stassen was forced to second Nixon's nomination at the Republican Convention. Unlike 1952, conservative Republicans (who had supported Robert A. Taft against Eisenhower in 1952) did not attempt to shape the platform. The only thing notable about the Republican Convention was that one delegate voted for a fictitious "Joe Smith" for Vice President in order to protest everything being unanimous.

Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates:

• Adlai E. Stevenson, former U.S. governor of Illinois
• Estes Kefauver, U.S. senator from Tennessee
• W. Averell Harriman, U.S. governor of New York
• Lyndon B. Johnson, U.S. Senate Majority Leader from Texas

Candidates gallery

<gallery> Image:Stevenson and Korean officials at USAF base in Korea, March 1953-cropped to Stevenson.jpg|Former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois Image:Kefauver.jpg|Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee Image:William Averell Harriman pers0170.jpg|Governor W. Averell Harriman of New York Image:37 Lbj2 3x4.jpg|Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas </gallery>

Primaries

Popular vote results

• Adlai Stevenson - 3,069,504 (50.70%)
• Estes Kefauver - 2,283,172 (37.71%)
• Unpledged - 380,300 (6.28%)
• Frank J. Lausche - 278,074 (4.59%)
• John William McCormack - 26,128 (0.43%)

Source

Democratic National Convention

At the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, New York Governor Averell Harriman, who was backed by former President Harry Truman, challenged Stevenson for the nomination. However, Stevenson's delegate lead was much too large for Harriman to overcome, and Stevenson won the nomination on the first ballot.

The roll call, as reported in Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, pp. 294-298:

Vice-Presidential Nomination

Democratic candidates:

• Estes Kefauver, U.S. senator from Tennessee
• John F. Kennedy, U.S. senator from Massachusetts

Candidates gallery

<gallery> Image:Kefauver.jpg|Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee Image:John F. Kennedy, White House color photo portrait.jpg|Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts </gallery>

The highlight of the 1956 Democratic Convention came when Stevenson, in an effort to create excitement for the ticket, made the surprise announcement that the convention's delegates would choose his running mate. This set off a desperate scramble among several candidates to win the nomination; a good deal of the excitement of the vice-presidential race came from the fact that the candidates had only one hectic day to campaign among the delegates before the voting began. The two leading contenders were Senator Kefauver, who retained the support of his primary delegates, and young Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was relatively unknown at that point. Although Stevenson privately preferred Senator Kennedy to be his running mate, he did not attempt to influence the balloting for Kennedy in any way. Kennedy surprised the experts by surging into the lead on the second ballot; at one point he was only 15 votes shy of winning. However, a number of states then left their "favorite son" candidates and switched to Kefauver, giving him the victory. Kennedy then gave a gracious concession speech. The defeat was actually a boost for Kennedy's long-term presidential chances; by coming so close to defeating Kefauver he gained much favorable national publicity, yet by losing to Kefauver he avoided any blame for Stevenson's expected loss to Eisenhower in November. The vote totals in the vice presidential balloting are recorded in the following table, which also comes from Bain & Parris.

General election

Campaign

Stevenson campaigned hard against Eisenhower, with television ads for the first time being the dominant medium for both sides. Because Eisenhower's 1952 election victory was due, in large part, to winning the female vote, there were a plethora of "housewife" focused ads.

Stevenson proposed significant increases in government spending for social programs and treaties with the Soviet Union to lower military spending and end nuclear testing on both sides. He also proposed to end the military draft and switch to an "all-volunteer" military. Eisenhower publicly opposed these ideas, even though in private he was working on a proposal to ban atmospheric nuclear testing. Eisenhower had retained the enormous personal and political popularity he had earned during the Second World War, and he maintained a comfortable lead in the polls throughout the campaign.

Eisenhower was also helped by two foreign-policy crises that developed in the weekend before the election. In Soviet-occupied Hungary, many citizens rose up in revolt against the Soviet Army; their revolt was brutally crushed within a few days by Soviet troops. In Egypt, a combined force of Israeli, British, and French troops seized the Suez Canal; Eisenhower condemned the seizure and pressured the allied forces to return the canal to Egyptian control. These two events led many Americans to rally in support of the President, thus swelling his expected margin of victory. Eisenhower had also supported the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1954; this ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ended legal segregation in public schools. As a result, Eisenhower won the support of nearly 40% of black voters; he was the last Republican presidential candidate to receive such a level of support from black voters.

On election day Eisenhower took over 57% of the popular vote and won 41 of the 48 states. Stevenson won only six Southern states and the border state of Missouri, becoming the first losing candidate since 1900 (William Jennings Bryan vs. McKinley) to carry the Show-Me-State. The next time Missouri would go in favor of the losing candidate would be 2008 (Obama vs. McCain), again by the slimmest of margins. Eisenhower carried Louisiana, making him the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state since Reconstruction in 1876.

Results

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

Close states (Margin of Victory Less than 8%)

1. Missouri, 0.22%
2. Tennessee, 0.62%
3. North Carolina, 1.33%
4. Arkansas, 6.64%
5. Minnesota, 7.60%

^(a) Alabama faithless elector W. F. Turner, who was pledged to Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver, instead cast his votes for Walter Burgwyn Jones, who was a circuit court judge in Turner's home town, and Herman Talmadge, governor of the neighboring state of Georgia.

Because of the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states in 1959, the 1956 presidential election was the last in which there were 531 electoral votes.

See also

• President of the United States
• U.S. Senate election, 1956
• History of the United States (1945-1964)

Miscellanea

• Missouri is often considered to be a 'bellwether' state because it has voted for the winner of every Presidential election for the past century. 1956 is one of two exceptions as it voted for Stevenson (by only 4,000 votes out of more than 1.8 million cast; most of this margin was provided by the City of St. Louis). The other time Missouri did not vote for the winner was 2008, when John McCain defeated Barack Obama by less than 6,000 votes.

• Eisenhower came in third in South Carolina, behind Stevenson and "unpledged electors", the first incumbent to have this status since William Howard Taft in 1912. It happened next to George Bush in 1992 when he finished third place in Maine behind Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

• As of 2008, the 1956 election was the last time in which the election was a rematch of the election held four years earlier. (Rematches also occurred in 1800, 1828, 1840, 1892, and 1900.)

• As of 2008, the 1956 Democratic vice presidential vote was the last time any convention voting went to a second ballot

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

• 1956 popular vote by counties
• The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials: 1952 – 2004
• How close was the 1956 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

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