1956 United States presidential election

1956 United States presidential election

The 1956 United States presidential election was the 43rd quadrennial presidential election. President Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully ran for reelection against Adlai Stevenson, the former Illinois governor whom he had defeated four years earlier. Eisenhower slightly improved on his 1952 majorities in both the popular and electoral vote.

About 1956 United States presidential election in brief

Summary 1956 United States presidential electionThe 1956 United States presidential election was the 43rd quadrennial presidential election. President Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully ran for reelection against Adlai Stevenson, the former Illinois governor whom he had defeated four years earlier. Eisenhower slightly improved on his 1952 majorities in both the popular and electoral vote. This was the last presidential election before the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, the last election in which any of the major candidates had been born in the 19th century. The only question among Republicans was whether Vice President Richard Nixon would again be Eisenhower’s running mate. There is some evidence that Eisenhower would have preferred a less controversial running mate, such as Governor Christian Herter of Massachusetts. The highlight of the 1956 Democratic Convention came when Stevenson made the surprise announcement that his running mate would be his son-in-law Richard C. Bain, as reported in Richard Bain and Judith H. Parris, Decisions and Voting Records, pp.294–298. The roll call call call for the Democratic Convention was reported to be much too large for W.

Averell Harriman to overcome, and Stevenson won the nomination on the first ballot. The last election to have been a rematch of a previous election was in 1952, when Eisenhower was reelected with a majority of the vote. The first televised presidential debate was held on May 21, 1956, before the Florida primary. Stevenson carried Florida by a 52–48% margin, but Kefauver won the California primary by a 63–37% margin. At the Democratic National Convention, one delegate voted for a fictitious \”Joe Smith\” for Vice-President to prevent a unanimous vote. Unlike 1952, conservative Republicans did not attempt to shape the platform. The final vote was held in Chicago, Illinois, on November 6, 1956. The results were announced at 8 p.m. ET (11 p.M. GMT) on November 7, 1957. The vote was the first presidential election to be held after the addition of Hawaii and Alaska to the U.S. electoral system. The winner of the election was declared on November 8, 1957, and the winner was announced the following day.