General election campaign

In the ensuing campaign, television was relied on by both parties. All four candidates campaigned in people’s living rooms as never before, striving for a new “homey” touch. Both Democratic candidates as well as Nixon stumped around the country. Stevenson led the attack on the administration and called for “a New America,” but he found himself often engaged in front-page debate with the vice president rather than with the president.

The issue of communist infiltration in the government had been prominent in 1952, following Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s unsubstantiated charge in February 1950 that communists had infiltrated the State Department, but it had receded from public consciousness by 1956, particularly after McCarthy’s condemnation by the Senate. Not having to respond to that issue in the campaign, Stevenson instead focused his attention elsewhere. He outlined a major federal program on behalf of the country’s aging citizens. He criticized the military draft as fast becoming an obsolete way of maintaining the armed forces, but he encountered quick opposition from both his opponents and found little support elsewhere. Urging an end to H-bomb testing, and contending that such tests could not really be kept secret from the world’s scientists, Stevenson found the president unyielding, and former president Truman had “no comment” on the matter. On Oct. 17 Soviet Premier Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bulganin wrote to President Eisenhower, “We fully share the opinion recently expressed by certain prominent figures in the United States concerning the necessity and the possibility of concluding an agreement on the matter of prohibiting atomic weapon tests.” The statement embarrassed the Democrats, and Eisenhower bluntly termed it an interference by a foreign government in U.S. internal affairs.

Much campaign oratory was devoted to such issues as inflation, price supports for farm crops, the Soil Bank Program, the influence of big business on government, federal aid to education, assignment of credit for the Social Security Act amendments, and ending the war in Korea (see Korean War). Republicans argued that the cost of living had been “remarkably stabilized,” while Democrats claimed that it was at “the highest point in history.”

Despite partisanship in the campaign, on vital matters the parties stood together: for peace, for a strong and secure country, for considerable reliance on the UN, for taking measures to diminish Soviet influence, and for continuing close and friendly relations with the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, as well as with the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere.

Eisenhower enjoyed a huge advantage politically. More than three-fifths of the country’s newspapers endorsed the president, while only about one in six backed Stevenson. The repudiation of the two Democratic candidates at the polls was equally overwhelming. They won only seven states (six Southern states plus Missouri), with 73 electoral votes, while the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket won 457 electoral votes. Eisenhower won 57.4 percent of the popular vote, bettering his 1952 total by 2.5 percent and defeating Stevenson by nearly 10 million votes. Democrats, however, maintained the House of Representatives and the Senate; only once before in American history (1848) had the presidential office been won by a party that did not achieve a majority in either house of Congress.

The postelection statements and conduct of both the victorious and the defeated candidates for offices throughout the land particularly heartened Americans. After his second defeat for the presidency, Stevenson, still much admired by many, wryly termed himself “the foremost authority on unsuccessful presidential campaigns.” He said that he would not run again. Stevenson had tried “to set forth a philosophy, a faith and even suggest a program for modern liberalism,” he said, continuing, “I think that I have done that…and…I have no doubt at all that many of the views and ideas I have tried to express will ultimately prevail.” The augmented stature of Nixon was evident when he made a major foreign policy address in December.

For the results of the previous election, see United States presidential election of 1952. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1960.

Results of the 1956 election

The results of the 1956 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table.