United States presidential election of 1956

United States presidential election of 1956, American presidential election held on November 6, 1956, in which incumbent Republican Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. It was the second consecutive election in which Stevenson lost to Eisenhower.

At a glance: the election of 1956

Eisenhower’s health and the vice presidency

In the winter of 1955–56 there was some speculation that Eisenhower would not seek a second term. Republican leaders urged him to run, but he was attacked as a “part-time” president by opponents—a charge resulting from his coronary thrombosis of September 24, 1955, and subsequent period of rest. All speculation ended on February 29 when he announced an affirmative decision. As a “recovered heart patient,” he said, doctors felt that he could “continue to carry the burdens of the presidency,” although a regime of ordered work activity would have to be mixed with regular amounts of exercise, recreation, and rest. Interest in the future of Vice Pres. Richard M. Nixon thereupon became intense. Nixon was a controversial figure, but he had proved particularly effective at campaigning in 1952 and 1954; he had also been energetic in office, visiting many countries, making policy speeches, and participating fully in cabinet and National Security Council meetings. On April 26 he informed Eisenhower that he would welcome running again as the president’s running mate, to which Eisenhower replied that he was “delighted to hear of the Vice President’s decision.”

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The president passed a physical examination on May 12, but in June he was suddenly stricken with ileitis. After a nearly two-hour operation on June 9, full details were given—an unusually complete reporting—in the press. Convalescence was normal, but the fact of two such dangerous illnesses in nine months and the vigorous Democratic attacks on Nixon guaranteed that the health of the president would be a campaign issue.

Democratic nomination

On the Democratic side, Stevenson and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee were engaged in a struggle in the state primaries. Victory by the latter in Minnesota made it look bad for the 1952 standard bearer. Both candidates aggressively wooed party leaders and voters and both offered alternative solutions to national problems, but increasingly bitter personal references marred their campaigning. Stevenson accused his opponent of a policy of “destroy if you can’t win” and of “wanting to win too much.” Stevenson then won three major state primaries and thus carried some momentum heading into the Democratic National Convention.

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At the convention, held August 13–17 in Chicago, former president Harry S. Truman—proclaiming himself no elder statesman, since “a statesman is just a dead politician, and I’m a very lively politician”—announced himself for Gov. W. Averell Harriman of New York. Stevenson could not carry more than nine states in the general election, Truman said. Nevertheless, Stevenson handily won the nomination. In a dramatic announcement the victor told the delegates that the “free processes” of the convention should decide on his running mate. The first ballot pitted Kefauver against Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Sen. Albert A. Gore of Tennessee, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, and Mayor John F. Wagner of New York City. Kefauver finished on top in the first ballot but without enough delegates to win outright. In the second ballot, Kennedy finished first but also without the requisite number of delegates. Following Gore’s withdrawal in favor of Kefauver, Kefauver was able to secure the vice presidential nomination.

The Democratic platform contained a compromise plank on civil rights. The national government, it promised, would be returned “to its rightful owners, the people of the United States.” In general, it declared, the administration had “confused timidity with courage and blindness with enlightenment.” Paucity of ideas, impaired unity of the free world, and “resentment rising against U.S. leadership everywhere” were the platform’s attempted indictment against the incumbent leadership. Yet the Democratic Party was not fundamentally opposed to many major U.S. policies. It favored participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, opposed admission of the People’s Republic of China into the United Nations, and was concerned over the plight of countries dominated by the Soviet Union even though it was not in favor of liberation by force. The platform agreed with earlier Stevenson-Kefauver pleas for supplying or selling arms to Israel. It also called for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act (anti-union legislation that had been passed in 1947 over Truman’s veto) and for enactment of new Social Security legislation.

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Republican convention

Meeting August 20–23 in San Francisco, the Republicans heard an inspirational address from former president Herbert Hoover. Although some Republicans sought to have Nixon replaced on the ticket, audible opposition on the convention floor proved nonexistent, and the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket was easily renominated. In his acceptance speech Eisenhower warned that taking “the centralization short-cut every time something is to be done” would result in “a swollen, bureaucratic, monster Government in Washington, in whose shadow our state and local governments will ultimately wither and die.” Both nominees admitted that there were still injustices in the United States. Nixon stated, “We believe in human welfare but not the welfare state”; still, “pockets of poverty” would have to be rooted out.