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1,206 delegates to the Republican National Convention 604 (majority) votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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From March 11 to June 3, 1952, delegates were elected to the 1952 Republican National Convention.
The fight for the 1952 Republican nomination was largely between popular General Dwight D. Eisenhower (who succeeded Thomas E. Dewey as the candidate of the party's liberal eastern establishment) and Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, the longtime leader of the conservative wing. Foreign policy during the Cold War was a major point of contention, with Eisenhower taking an interventionist stance and Taft favoring greater caution and avoidance of foreign alliances. Eisenhower tended to accept many of the social welfare aspects of the New Deal, to which Taft was adamantly opposed.
Two other major candidates for the nomination, though never challenging Eisenhower or Taft, were Governor of California and Dewey's 1948 running-mate Earl Warren, and former Governor of Minnesota Harold Stassen, who had contended for the nomination in 1948 as well.
Taft, who was 62 when the campaign began and running his third presidential campaign, freely admitted that this would be his last chance to win the nomination. Taft's weakness, which he was never able to overcome, was the fear of many party bosses that he was too conservative and controversial to win a presidential election.[ citation needed ] The primaries were ultimately inconclusive, and the nomination was decided by a contest over delegates from Texas and Georgia; led by Dewey and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the Eisenhower campaign won a vote of the whole convention to award the contested delegates to Eisenhower, who carried the first ballot. The episode was reminiscent of the 1912 Republican National Convention forty years prior, where Taft's father won the nomination over Theodore Roosevelt by similar means.
In the general election on November 4, Eisenhower and his running mate, Senator Richard Nixon of California, defeated the Democratic party's ticket of Governor Adlai Stevenson II of Illinois, and Senator John Sparkman of Alabama.
Beginning in 1932, during a period which political historians would later call the "Fifth Party System," United States politics were dominated by the Democratic Party and its New Deal coalition of laborers and labor organizations, racial and religious minorities (especially Jews, Catholics, and African Americans), liberal white Southerners, and intellectuals. delivered consistent victories for the Democratic Party at the presidential and congressional level. Entering the 1952 election campaign, no Republican had been elected president since Herbert Hoover in 1928. Republicans had only won a single national election during the period, in the 1946 elections to the 80th United States Congress.
Following their victory in 1946, Republicans were hopeful to win back the White House in 1948. With the progressive and Southern wings of the Democratic Party bolting from the presidential ticket and popular Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey leading their ticket for the second consecutive campaign, most expected a Republican victory but were surprised by the re-election of President Harry S. Truman in one of the biggest upsets in the history of presidential elections.
Having lost the presidency three times, Dewey declined to make a fourth run. Instead, the leading candidates were Dewey's main rivals for the 1948 nomination, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio and former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, and his 1948 running mate, Governor of California Earl Warren.
During the 1948 campaign, James Roosevelt and Americans for Democratic Action attempted to draft popular World War II general Dwight D. Eisenhower, then Chief of Staff of the Army, to replace President Truman on the Democratic Party ticket. Eisenhower, who commanded the Allied Expeditionary Force in the invasions of Normandy and Germany, remained broadly popular and admired across the country without regard for political position or region. [1] However, Eisenhower repeatedly declined to seek the Democratic nomination ahead of the 1948 convention and issued a Shermanesque statement removing himself from consideration on July 5, 1948. [2] Repeated efforts to ignore his statement failed when Roosevelt admitted that a draft would not succeed to convince Eisenhower, and the party nominated Truman instead.
By 1951, with Truman's popularity polling at record lows, both parties attempted to draft Eisenhower once again. However, since the 1948 election, he had been increasingly drawn toward the Republican Party. [3] Dewey and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. of Massachusetts led efforts to convince Eisenhower to run as a Republican and, through a series of organizations financed and led by Charles F. Willis, Stanley M. Rumbough Jr., and Harold E. Talbott, established a draft effort with over 250,000 members nationwide. [4] [5] [6] [7] Personal friends and former military colleagues were also involved in the Republican draft effort. [7] They were motivated at least partly by Eisenhower's broad appeal, which they felt Stassen and Taft lacked, and his support for post-war international organizations like the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Taft opposed or supported to a more limited extent than Eisenhower. With Taft leading the field in late 1951, Eisenhower's reluctance to run declined, and on January 6, 1952, he permitted Lodge to publicly reveal that he considered himself a Republican. [8]
The following leaders were candidates for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination:
These candidates participated in multiple state primaries or were included in multiple major national polls.
Candidate | Most recent position | Home state | Campaign | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (1951–1952) President of Columbia University (1948–1953) | Kansas | Accepted draft: June 4, 1952 [9] Nominated at convention: July 11, 1952 (Campaign) | ||
United States Senatorfrom Ohio (1939–1953) Ohio State Senator (1931–1933) Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives (1926–1927) | Ohio | Announced campaign: October 16, 1951 [10] Defeated at convention: July 11, 1952 (Campaign) | ||
Governor of California (1943–1953) California Attorney General (1939–1943) District Attorney of Alameda County (1925–1939) | California | Announced: November 1951 (Campaign) | ||
President of the University of Pennsylvania (1948–1953) Governor of Minnesota (1939–1943) | Pennsylvania | (Campaign) | ||
General of the Army (1944–1964) Commander of the United Nations Command and Governor of the Ryukyu Islands (1950–1951) Commander of the Far East Command (1947–1951) | New York | |||
The following candidates ran only in their home state's primary or caucus for the purpose of controlling its delegate slate at the convention and did not appear to be considered national candidates by the media.
The following persons were listed in two or more major national polls or were the subject of media speculation surrounding their potential candidacy, but declined to actively seek the nomination.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Poll source | Publication | Thomas Dewey | Dwight Eisenhower | Douglas MacArthur | Harold Stassen | Robert Taft | Earl Warren | Other | Undecided/None |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gallup [28] [lower-alpha 1] | July 17, 1949 | 20% | 21% | 13% | 21% | 12% | 9% | 16% [lower-alpha 2] | 5% |
Gallup [29] | Nov. 6, 1949 | 12% | 25% | – | 19% | 15% | 10% | 13% [lower-alpha 3] | 6% |
Gallup [30] | Apr. 5, 1950 | 15% | 37% | – | 12% | 17% | 5% | 9% [lower-alpha 4] | 8% |
Gallup [31] | Sep. 26, 1950 | 14% | 42% | – | 14% | 15% | 6% | 3% [lower-alpha 5] | 6% |
Gallup [32] | Dec. 16, 1950 | 16% | 35% | – | 8% | 24% | 10% | 2% | 5% |
Gallup [33] | Apr. 13, 1951 | 14% | 38% | – | 9% | 22% | 10% | 3% [lower-alpha 6] | 4% |
Gallup | May 1951 | 30% | – | 10% | 22% | 13% | |||
Gallup [34] | Dec. 23, 1951 | 9% | 30% | 14% | 3% | 28% | 11% | 3% | 2% |
9% | – | 21% | 6% | 34% | 19% | 7% | 4% | ||
11% | 35% | – | 3% | 32% | 13% | 4% | 2% | ||
Gallup [35] | Feb. 12, 1952 | 5% | 33% | 14% | 5% | 33% | 8% | – | 2% |
Gallup [36] | Mar. 2, 1952 | 5% | 33% | 14% | 6% | 34% | 6% | – | 2% |
Gallup [37] | Apr. 8, 1952 | 3% | 37% | 12% | 4% | 34% | 9% | – | 1% |
Gallup [38] | May 1, 1952 | 3% | 44% | 10% | 3% | 33% | 6% | – | 1% |
Gallup [39] | June 4, 1952 | 2% | 43% | 9% | 3% | 36% | 6% | – | 1% |
Gallup [40] | June 21, 1952 | – | 44% | 10% | 3% | 35% | 7% | – | 1% |
Gallup [41] | July 1, 1952 | – | 46% | 10% | 3% | 35% | 5% | – | 1% |
In late 1951, Eisenhower supporters increased their efforts to draft the general by establishing a campaign organization in New Hampshire, the first state to hold a popular election for delegates. Governor Sherman Adams endorsed the effort and became the New Hampshire campaign manager for the Draft Eisenhower campaign. [42] On January 6, at the same press conference revealing Eisenhower was a Republican, Senator Lodge formally submitted the general's name in the New Hampshire primary. The draft movement soon gained the endorsement of twenty-four newspapers, led by TheNew York Times. [43] A Draft Eisenhower rally at Madison Square Garden on February 8 drew a crowd far larger than the arena's capacity; shortly after, Eisenhower privately affirmed that he would contest the presidency, if nominated by the Republicans. [44] [45]
On March 11, Eisenhower won the New Hampshire primary over Taft by a margin of 12 percent, sweeping all fourteen delegates.
However, from there until the Republican Convention the primaries were divided fairly evenly between the two men, and by the time the convention opened the race for the nomination was still too close to call.
Statewide contest won by candidates [46]
Date | Pledged delegates | Contest | Robert A. Taft | Dwight Eisenhower | Harold Stassen | Earl Warren | Douglas MacArthur | Other/Uncommitted |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
March 11 | 14 | New Hampshire primary [47] [48] | 38.59% | 14 50.25% | 7.08% | - | 3.48% | 0.6% |
March 18 | 28 | Minnesota | 8.22% | 4 37.07% | 24 44.23% | 1.83% | 0.47% | 8.18% |
April 1 | Nebraska | 36.33% | 30.15% | 24.29% | 0.85% | 3.41% | 4.97% | |
30 | Wisconsin | 24 40.63% | - | 21.85% | 6 33.77% | - | 3.75% | |
April 8 | 0 | Illinois | 73.56% | 11.59% | 12.19% | 0.22% | 0.59% | 1.85% |
April 15 | 0 | New Jersey | 35.54% | 60.64% | 3.66% | 0.07% | 0.10% | - |
April 22 | Pennsylvania | 15.23% | 73.62% | 10.25% | 0.27% | 0.51% | 0.12% | |
April 29 | Massachusetts | 29.69% | 68.68% | 0.29% | 0.41% | 0.61% | 0.32% | |
May 6 | 56 | Ohio | 56 78.79% | - | 21.21% | - | - | - |
May 13 | West Virginia | 78.52% | - | 21.48% | - | - | - | |
May 16 | Oregon | 6.74% | 64.55% | 2.47% | 16.48% | 6.96% | 3.80% [lower-alpha 1] | |
June 3 | California | 33.61% [lower-alpha 2] | - | - | 66.39% | - | - | |
South Dakota | 50.32% | 49.68% [lower-alpha 3] | - | - | - | - | ||
Italics indicate a write-in candidacy.
Primaries total popular vote results: [17]
When the 1952 Republican National Convention opened in Chicago, most political experts rated Taft and Eisenhower as neck-and-neck in the delegate vote totals. Eisenhower's managers, led by Governor Dewey and Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., accused Taft of "stealing" delegate votes in Southern states such as Texas and Georgia. They claimed that Taft's leaders in these states had illegally refused to give delegate spots to Eisenhower supporters and put Taft delegates in their place. Lodge and Dewey proposed to evict the pro-Taft delegates in these states and replace them with pro-Eisenhower delegates; they called this proposal "Fair Play". Although Taft and his supporters angrily denied this charge, the convention voted to support Fair Play 658–548, and Taft lost many Southern delegates; this decided the nomination in Eisenhower's favor. However, the mood at the convention was one of the most bitter and emotional in American history; in one speech Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, a Taft supporter, pointed at Governor Dewey on the convention floor and accused him of leading the Republicans "down the road to defeat", and mixed boos and cheers rang out from the delegates. In the end Eisenhower took the nomination on the first ballot; to heal the wounds caused by the battle he went to Taft's hotel suite and met with him. The Convention then chose young Senator Richard Nixon of California as Eisenhower's running mate; it was felt that Nixon's credentials as a slashing campaigner and anti-Communist would be valuable. Most historians now believe that Eisenhower's nomination was primarily due to the feeling that he was a "sure winner" against the Democrats; most of the delegates were conservatives who would probably have supported Taft if they felt he could have won the general election. The balloting at the Republican Convention went: (Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, pp. 280–286):
Presidential Balloting, RNC 1952 | ||
Contender: Ballot | 1st Before Shifts | 1st After Shifts |
---|---|---|
General Dwight D. Eisenhower | 595 | 845 |
Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft | 500 | 280 |
Governor Earl Warren of California | 81 | 77 |
Former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen | 20 | 0 |
General Douglas MacArthur | 10 | 4 |
Freshman California Senator Richard Nixon was nominated for Vice President, also with notable Dewey's support. Republican politicians thought that his political experience, aggressive style (he was known as strongly anti-communist) and political base on the West would help political newcomer Eisenhower. [49]
The 1944 United States presidential election was the 40th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II, which ended the following year. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win an unprecedented fourth term. It was also the fifth presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1940, and 2016.
The 1948 United States presidential election was the 41st quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 1948. In one of the greatest election upsets in American history, incumbent Democratic President Harry S. Truman defeated heavily favored Republican New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, and third-party candidates, becoming the third president to succeed to the presidency upon his predecessor's death and be elected to a full term.
The 1952 United States presidential election was the 42nd quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Democratic Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II in a landslide victory, becoming the first Republican president in 20 years. This was the first election since 1928 without an incumbent president on the ballot.
Thomas Edmund Dewey was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican Party's nominee for president of the United States in 1944 and 1948, losing the latter election to Harry S. Truman in a major upset. The 288 combined electoral votes Dewey received from both elections place him second behind William Jennings Bryan as the candidate with the most electoral votes who never acceded to the presidency.
Harold Edward Stassen was an American Republican Party politician, military officer, and attorney who was the 25th governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. He was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 1948. Though he was considered for a time to be the front-runner, he lost the nomination to New York governor Thomas E. Dewey. He thereafter regularly continued to run for the presidency and other offices, such that his name became most identified with his status as a perennial candidate.
Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate majority leader, and was a leader of the conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who blocked expansion of the New Deal. Often referred to as "Mr. Republican", he co-sponsored the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which banned closed shops, created the concept of right-to-work states, and regulated other labor practices.
The 1952 Republican National Convention was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois from July 7 to 11, 1952, and nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower of New York, nicknamed "Ike", for president and Richard M. Nixon of California for vice president.
The 1948 Republican National Convention was held at the Municipal Auditorium, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from June 21 to 25, 1948.
The Draft Eisenhower movement was a widespread political movement that eventually persuaded Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Chief of Staff of the United States Army, to contest the presidency of the United States.
The 1940 Republican National Convention was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from June 24 to June 28, 1940. It nominated Wendell Willkie of New York for president and Senator Charles McNary of Oregon for vice president.
From March 9 to June 1, 1948, voters of the Republican Party elected delegates to the 1948 Republican National Convention, in part to choose the party nominee for president in the 1948 United States presidential election.
From March 12 to May 17, 1940, voters of the Republican Party chose delegates to nominate a candidate for president at the 1940 Republican National Convention. The nominee was selected at the convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from June 24–28, 1940.
From March 10 to June 2, 1964, voters of the Republican Party elected 1,308 delegates to the 1964 Republican National Convention through a series of delegate selection primaries and caucuses, for the purpose of determining the party's nominee for president in the 1964 United States presidential election.
From March 12 to June 11, 1968, voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for president in the 1968 United States presidential election. Former vice president Richard Nixon was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 1968 Republican National Convention held from August 5 to August 8, 1968, in Miami Beach, Florida.
Electoral history of Robert A. Taft, United States Senator from Ohio (1939–1953), United States Senate Majority Leader (1953) and a candidate for the 1940, 1948 and 1952 Republican presidential nominations.
Senator Richard M. Nixon's speech at a state Republican Party fundraiser in New York City on May 8, 1952, impressed Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who was an Eisenhower supporter and had formed a pro-Eisenhower delegation from New York to attend the national convention. In a private meeting after the speech, Dewey suggested to Nixon that he would make a suitable vice presidential candidate on the ticket with Eisenhower.
This article lists those who were potential candidates for the Republican nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 1948 election. After New York Governor Thomas Dewey secured the Republican presidential nomination on the third ballot of the 1948 Republican National Convention, the convention needed to choose Dewey's running mate. Dewey and several party leaders discussed Dewey's running mate during the evening of June 24. House Majority Leader Charles A. Halleck and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen were both considered, but Dewey ultimately decided to ask California Governor Earl Warren to be his running mate. Warren had earlier said that he would not accept the vice presidential nomination, and asked for time to consider the offer. In the meantime, Stassen was offered the nomination if Warren declined. However, Dewey convinced the reluctant Warren to join his ticket. Halleck alleged that he had been promised the vice presidency in exchange for supporting Dewey, but Halleck's isolationism convinced Dewey and others to pass him over. The Dewey-Warren ticket was well-received by the press, as it combined the youthful, popular governors of two of the three most populous states in the nation. Despite being favored by most, the Dewey–Warren ticket lost the 1948 election to the Democratic Truman–Barkley ticket. In 1953, Warren was appointed Chief Justice of the United States by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In his political career, between the years 1938 and 1994, Harold Stassen, a Republican, ran many campaigns for public office. He was elected governor of Minnesota three times, in 1938, 1940, and 1942.
In 1948, Harry S. Truman and Alben W. Barkley were elected president and vice president of the United States, defeating Republican nominees Thomas E. Dewey and Earl Warren. Truman, a Democrat and vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt, had ascended to the presidency upon Roosevelt's death in 1945. He announced his candidacy for election on March 8, 1948. Unchallenged by any major nominee in the Democratic primaries, he won almost all of them easily; however, many Democrats like James Roosevelt opposed his candidacy and urged former Chief of Staff of the United States Army Dwight D. Eisenhower to run instead.
Of the 25 Republican governors, only three, Jordan of Idaho, Lee of Utah and Brunsdale of North Dakota, have announced their support of Taft. Their states have a total of twelve electoral votes. The Republican governors of 13 states have announced their support of Ike. The 13 (Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin) have 146 electoral votes in November.