1956 Elections in the United States

The Event Elections for the presidency and other federal offices

Date November 6, 1956

In a landslide, voters returned Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard M. Nixon for a second term and gave the Democratic Party continued control of Congress.

The Eisenhower victory in 1952 had given the Republican Party control of Congress for the first time since before the Great Depression. However, the midterm elections of 1954 saw that fragile control disappear. The loss of one Senate seat gave the Democrats control of the Senate, as did the loss of eighteen seats in the House of Representatives. The loss by the Republicans was due in part to the public’s continued perception of the Republican Party as the party of big business and of the Democrats as the party of the people. President Dwight D. Eisenhower hoped to change that perception, win reelection in 1956, and carry the Republican Party back into control of Congress.

Presidential Election

Near the end of Eisenhower’s first presidential term, the president suffered a heart attack that many feared would end his political career. Vice President Richard M. Nixon served as acting president for several weeks. However, when his doctors pronounced him fully recovered in early 1956, Eisenhower resumed plans for reelection to a second term. At the Republican national convention in the San Francisco Cow Palace that summer, the popular president was quickly renominated. There was a question about keeping Nixon on the ticket, but Eisenhower eventually decided to keep him.

The previous week, the Democratic Party met in Chicago and renominated Adlai Stevenson, the former governor of Illinois. Although being soundly defeated by Eisenhower in 1952, Stevenson again actively pursued the Democratic nomination. He ran in the state primaries and secured the nomination on the first ballot. For his vice president, in an effort to hold the Democratic control of the South, he chose Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kefauver had gained national attention as chairman of the Senate Crime Investigation Committee and with his 1951 book based on that work, Crime in America.

During the campaign, Stevenson did not heed advice to stress domestic issues. He disappointed liberal Democrats by not taking a strong stand on civil rights and was perceived as not caring about the needs of African Americans. Any concern he did have was overshadowed by his need for southern electoral votes.

Stevenson focused his campaign on foreign policy. He declared that U.S. security was at risk because of the failure of Eisenhower’s policies during the most crucial years of the Cold War. Stevenson’s suggestion to halt hydrogen bomb testing was interpreted as a weakening of U.S. defenses at a time when most felt that they needed strengthening. Stevenson’s opinion was based on the comment by Albert Einstein that a World War III involving nuclear weapons would be followed by a World War IV fought only with sticks and stones. However, when the Soviet Union began a new round of nuclear testing in 1956, President Eisenhower said the United States had to follow suit or lose its advantage in nuclear weapons.

Eisenhower and Nixon concentrated on domestic conditions, including what many have called the “affluent society.” Americans were enjoying a prosperity never imagined one generation earlier, and the new medium of television was carrying that message into millions of American homes. However, the major factor in the campaign was the popularity of the president. The outcome of the election was never in doubt. Eisenhower won 57.6 percent of the popular vote and 457 electoral votes; Stevenson won only 73 electoral votes and only 7 southern states. Stevenson failed to win his home state of Illinois or Kefauver’s home state of Tennessee.

Congressional Elections

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, the coattails of President Eisenhower were not long enough to carry his party back into control of Congress. The losses the party suffered in 1954 were only a taste of what they would lose in 1956.

The Republican Party was still trying to carve for itself a reliable voting block in the post-Depression years. Eisenhower’s personal popularity was not enough to perform that task. To help Eisenhower’s efforts, Arthur Larson, Eisenhower’s undersecretary of labor, wrote A Republican Looks at His Party in 1956. His theme was “New Republicanism,” which included a major appeal to workers. He also emphasized Eisenhower’s support for an increase in the minimum wage and other social welfare legislation.

Both parties moved toward the political center in 1956, trying to gain the votes of the moderate and independent voters. The mainstream of each party agreed on most domestic issues, such as the need to continue strengthening Social Security and to reduce budget deficits.

The outcome of the congressional elections was a sharp contrast to the presidential race. Three out of four voters for Eisenhower did not vote for Republican congressional candidates. The Democratic Party increased their majority in the House of Representatives by thirty-three. The trend continued in the off-year elections of 1958, when the Democrats secured a wide margin in both houses: In the House it was 282-154, and in the Senate it was 64-34. The Democrats held more than two-thirds of each branch of Congress. In the House, only 59 percent of incumbents were reelected.

Impact

The 1956 elections produced the necessity of cooperation between a very popular president of one party and a congress heavily controlled by the opposition. On one hand, it enabled President Eisenhower to continue his leadership in the Cold War, which including inviting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to visit the United States in 1959. On the other hand, the congressional elections gave the Democratic Party hope that they could win the White House in 1960.

Bibliography

Campbell, Angus, et al. Elections and the Political Order. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966. Discusses voting patterns and demographics of elections of the 1950’s.

Diggins, John Patrick. The Proud Decades: America in War and Peace, 1941-1960. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. Historical analysis of the major events of the 1950’s.

Larson, Arthur. A Republican Looks at His Party. New York: Harper, 1956. Written by a member of the Eisenhower administration as a campaign manual in 1956.

Madaras, Larry. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in American History Since 1945. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Gives opposing arguments on major political issues in the twentieth century, discussing Eisenhower’s presidential tenure in the process.

Pickett, William B. Eisenhower Decides to Run: Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000. While focusing primarily on the 1952 election year, the book nonetheless details Eisenhower’s strategy in his political wins.

Polsby, Nelson W., and Aaron Wildavsky. Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics. 10th ed. New York: Chatham House, 2000. Explores how a president becomes elected, highlighting the complexity of the selection process.