1956 United States presidential election

1956 United States presidential election

← 1952 November 6, 1956 1960 →
531 members of the Electoral College 266 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	60.2%[1] 2.1 pp
Nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower Adlai Stevenson II Party Republican Democratic Home state Pennsylvania[a][2][3] Illinois Running mate Richard Nixon Estes Kefauver Electoral vote 457 73 States carried 41 7 Popular vote 35,579,180 26,028,028 Percentage 57.4% 42.0%
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Eisenhower/Nixon, blue denotes those won by Stevenson/Kefauver, orange indicates a faithless elector from Alabama cast the electoral vote for Walter B. Jones for President and Herman Talmadge for Vice President. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican Elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican

The 1956 United States presidential election was the 43rd quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1956. Incumbent Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, were re-elected, defeating for a second time Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, former Illinois governor. This election was the sixth rematch in American presidential history, a situation which would not occur again until 2024. It was the second time in which the winner was the same both times, the first being William McKinley's victories over William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and 1900. This was the last election before term limits established by the 22nd Amendment, which applied to Eisenhower, were effective.

Eisenhower, who first became famous for his military leadership in World War II, remained widely popular. A heart attack in 1955 provoked speculation that he would not seek a second term, but his health recovered and he faced no opposition at the 1956 Republican National Convention. Stevenson remained popular with a core of liberal Democrats, but held no office and had no real base. He defeated New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and several other candidates on the first presidential ballot of the 1956 Democratic National Convention. Stevenson called for a significant increase in government spending on social programs and a decrease in military spending.

With the end of the Korean War and a strong economy, few doubted that the charismatic Eisenhower would be reelected. Supporters of the president focused on his "personal qualities ... his sincerity, his integrity and sense of duty, his virtue as a family man, his religious devotion, and his sheer likeableness,"^[4] rather than on his leadership record. The weeks before the election saw two major international crises in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and Eisenhower's handling of the crises boosted his popularity.

Eisenhower slightly improved on his 1952 majorities in both the popular and electoral vote. He increased his 1952 gains among Democrats, especially Northern and Midwestern white ethnic groups and city-dwelling and suburban White Southerners.^[5] Surprisingly, Eisenhower narrowly lost Missouri, a bellwether state for most of the 20th century, and which voted for him in 1952; at the same time he carried Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia, which had voted against him in the previous election. This was the last presidential election before the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, as well as the final presidential election in which a major party candidate was born in the 19th century.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).