Presidential election in the United States in 1952

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42nd presidential election
4th November 1952
			Republican Party
			Dwight Eisenhower / Richard Nixon
			electors					442
			be right				34,075,529
									55.2%
			Democratic Party
			Adlai Stevenson / John Sparkman
			electors					89
			be right				27.375.090
									44.3%
Election results by state
39 states   Eisenhower / Nixon						9 states   Stevenson / Sparkman
President of the United States
Before the election Harry S. Truman Democratic Party						Elected Dwight Eisenhower Republican Party

The 42nd election of the President of the United States took place on November 4, 1952 . To succeed President Harry S. Truman , the competed Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower and Democrat Adlai Stevenson . Eisenhower's clear victory ended a twenty year period in which the Democrats appointed president.

Candidates

Democrats

Democratic candidates:

• 

  Illinois Governor Adlai E. Stevenson

• 

  Senator Estes Kefauver

• 

  Senator Richard B. Russell

• 

  Ex-Secretary of the Economy W. Averell Harriman

• 

  Vice President Alben W. Barkley

• 

  Senator Robert S. Kerr

• 

  Massachusetts Governor Paul A. Dever

• 

  Senator Hubert Humphrey

• 

  Senator J. William Fulbright

• 

  Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut

• 

  Senator James E. Murray

With the Democrats, President Harry S. Truman could have run again because the term limit that came into force in 1951 did not yet apply to him. Truman had taken over the presidency in 1945 after the death of his predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt and was confirmed in office by the voters in 1948 . Accordingly, Truman was the expected Democratic candidate earlier in the year. Due to poor poll results, he lost the first intra-party area code in New Hampshire and announced on March 29, 1952 that he would be waiving another term. Truman later wrote in his memoir that he had already decided three years earlier to leave the White House in January 1953.

The winner of New Hampshire , Senator Estes Kefauver from Tennessee , who subsequently won other primary elections, was considered an unpredictable loner by many influential Democrats, which is why they were reluctant to stand behind him. However, other possible candidates also had crucial weaknesses: former Trade Secretary Averell Harriman , favored by Truman , had no domestic political experience, Senator Richard B. Russell from Georgia, who beat Kefauver in Florida , was considered a racist in the north, and Vice President Alben W. Barkley appeared at 74 Years as too old. Generally acceptable, however, was Adlai Stevenson , the governor of Illinois , who first had to be persuaded to run. At the nomination convention in Chicago , Kefauver was initially in front, but Stevenson prevailed in the third ballot. John Sparkman , who represented the conservative southern wing of the party, was nominated as a vice-presidential candidate .

republican

Republican candidates:

• 

  General and President of Columbia University Dwight D. Eisenhower

• 

  Senator Robert A. Taft

• 

  California Governor Earl Warren

Dwight D. Eisenhower , former General of the Second World War , was the representative of the financially strong, business-oriented and interventionist east wing of the Republicans. He started the race as a running mate with Senator Richard Nixon from California . The politically inexperienced Eisenhower only prevailed at the Republican National Convention in Chicago against Senator Robert A. Taft from Ohio , who represented the rather small-business, rural and conservative-isolationist wing of the Republicans, whose base was in the Midwest. The primaries had not resulted in a preliminary decision as the candidates had largely avoided each other. As in 1948, the California Governor Earl Warren hoped in vain for his chance as a compromise candidate.

Election campaign

While the Democrats, in their rather defensive election campaign, warned against a revision of Roosevelt's economic and social reforms, known under the term New Deal , by a republican president and an erosion of individual liberties in the wake of a widespread communist , especially fostered by the republican Senator Joseph McCarthy Feared, the offensive republican campaign was themed “Korea, Communism and Corruption”.

The Republicans criticized the futile continuation of the conflict in Korea, which had long since become a victim of positional warfare , the alleged infiltration of America by communist agents and sympathizers and, in their opinion, widespread corruption in the environment of the democratic administration.

The latter allegation in particular seemed to fall back on the Republicans themselves when it became known that much of Nixon's political activities were financed by secret funds from financially strong Republican businessmen. Although such funds were not illegal, the question arose what kind of consideration the donors expected for their donations. When the criticism of Nixon grew stronger and Eisenhower seemed to be distancing himself from his vice-presidential candidate, he commented on it in a TV statement. In it he emphasized his modest lifestyle, assured that he had always remained within the framework of the law and said that he had only accepted a gift once, the legality of which he was not entirely clear - namely a dog named "Checkers" for his children, which he gave also will not return under any circumstances. Although this so-called "Checkers Speech" left many questions unanswered for Nixon's critics, it was such a great success with Republican supporters that Eisenhower stuck to his vice-presidential candidate.

When the ex-general promised at the end of the election campaign that if he won, he would go to Korea himself and see to it that the war would end there, this gave his campaign additional momentum.

Result

On election day, November 4, 1952, Eisenhower won by a clear margin. Around 55.2 percent of the voters voted for him, 44.3 percent of the US voters voted for Stevenson. In the decisive Electoral College , Eisenhower's lead was even more pronounced with 442 against 89. The Democrat was only able to win a majority in a number of southern states, including Kentucky and West Virginia (Eisenhower won Texas and Florida for them ). The rest of the country voted unanimously for the Republican candidate. Eisenhower's victory marked the Republicans' first winning presidential election since 1928 . His inauguration on January 20, 1953 ended two decades of Democratic rule in the White House . The Republicans were also successful in the congressional elections , which were held at the same time: they succeeded in gaining a majority in both chambers of the legislature .

The election was also remarkable insofar as a mainframe computer was used for the first time on the evening of the election to determine a forecast of the election outcome. The Universal Automatic Calculator (UNIVAC) gave a largely correct forecast at an early stage after counting 7% of the votes. However, this deviated so far from the expected outcome of the election that it was not passed on to the audience by the TV show's moderators because it was assumed that the computer had miscalculated. After the election, the television station CBS publicly admitted that UNIVAC was right at an early stage. This made it known to a broad public at one stroke.

candidate	Political party	be right		electors
		number	percent
Dwight D. Eisenhower	republican	34,075,529	55.13%	442
Adlai Stevenson	democrat	27.375.090	44.38%	89
Vincent Hallinan	Progressive party	140.746	0.23%	0
Stuart Hamblen	Prohibition Party	73,412	0.12%	0
total		61,664,777	100%	531

266 votes were necessary for the election to the president.

The Republicans finally celebrated a landslide victory and were able to move back into the White House for the first time in 20 years.

In addition, the election is seen as the beginning of anchoring the Republicans in the southern states. So Eisenhower managed to win Florida, Texas and Virginia, something the Republicans had only achieved once since the Reconstruction.

literature

• Donald Richard Deskins, Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett: Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2010, ISBN 978-0-472-11697-3 , pp. 396-406 (= Chapter 44: Dwight D. Eisenhower's Initial Election. ).

Web links

Commons : 1952 US Presidential Election  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ It was the last time to date that a presidential candidate from one of the two major parties was not nominated in the first ballot.
2. ↑ Guy De la Bédoyère: The First Computers. Evans Brothers, London 2005, ISBN 0-237-52741-3 , p. 33
3. ^ History of Computers part 3 BBC Documentary. YoutTube video, 1991, accessed on August 27, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Winner and Defeated , Spiegel-Online, January 2008.
5. ↑ Harvey L. Schantz (Ed.): American Presidential Elections. Process, Policy, and Political Change. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY 1996, ISBN 0-7914-2863-X , p. 104.