The American Presidential Election of 1952

The Ultimate American Presidential Election BookEvery Presidential Election in American History (17882024) is now available!

Mr. Beat's band

Donate to Mr.Beat for prizes

The 42nd episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1952, a balding, out-of-touch intellectual who wasn't too enthusiastic about running in the first place takes on a war hero. #merica #presidentialelectionsinamericanhistory #mrbeat

Feeling extra dorky? Then visit here:

The 42nd Presidential election in American history took place on November 4, 1952. Oh Harry. He had managed to get the country into another war. But now the United States military was acting as the leading force for an organization Truman had helped start, called the United Nations. UN forces arrived to help defend South Korea after Communist North Korea invaded them. This was back in 1950. Two years later, the conflict dragged on as a stalemate. Truman called it just a “police action,” but today we know it as the Korean War. Even though the war still gets glossed over, 10s of thousands of Americans died in it, and Truman’s popularity declined the longer it continued.

Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist attacks and the revelation of widespread corruption of federal employees also hurt Truman’s approval rating, so much that he hesitated to run for re-election. He cautiously proceeded, though, trying to talk Adlai Stevenson II to run. Stevenson was the governor of Illinois and grandson of former Vice President Adlai Stevenson I. But Stevenson was like “meh- I really don’t want to that much,” and the populist Estes Kefauver, a Senator from Tennessee, became a leading candidate. After Kefauver upset Truman in the New Hampshire primary, Truman dropped out. Kefauver continued to win many primaries, but powerful people within the Democratic Party establishment simply thought he was too much of an outsider, and therefore could not be trusted. At the Democratic Convention, Kefauver was the early favorite, but eventually the party’s bosses were able to convert enough people to support Adlai Stevenson, who finally was like, “alright, fine. I’ll run. Sure.” They nominated John Sparkman, a Senator from Alabama, as his running mate. This was mostly because they wanted the former Dixiecrats back, as Sparkman was alright with racial segregation.

The Republican Party had a four-way race for the nomination. Dwight Eisenhower, the World War II hero, had finally been persuaded to run for President, and he had three familiar opponents- Robert Taft, Earl Warren, and Harold Stassen. Because Warren and Stassen only won the primaries in their home states, so really this was more of a two-way race between Eisenhower and Taft. The two had quite different foreign policies. Taft was a non-interventionist, criticizing the Korean War and calling for less involvement in foreign conflicts. Eisenhower was cool with the Truman Doctrine, seeing the spread of Communism as a big threat that needed to be stopped whenever possible. Taft also criticized Truman for the welfare state that had ballooned since the New Deal, while Eisenhower was cool with keeping the welfare state.

Eisenhower and Taft were neck and neck in the primary race. Going into the Republican convention- everyone knew it would be one of those two. But Taft’s campaign got accused of silencing Eisenhower delegates from Southern states. Whether true or not, this ended up hurting Taft. After a bitter and divided convention, Eisenhower barely came out as the winner, with Richard Nixon, a Senator from California, as his running mate, who accused others of being crooks, and some accused him of being a crook, but he cleared everything up with a dramatic speech where he mentioned his dog Checkers.

Eisenhower was incredibly popular candidate thanks to being a war hero, and he drew huge crowds. He was way ahead in the polls throughout his campaign, and even had a catchy slogan, “I Like Ike.” Adlai Stevenson drew big crowds, too, but he became famously known as an “egghead,” not only because his baldness but because of his tendency of being too intellectual and out of touch with ordinary people.

Both campaigns used television ads quite a bit, marking a shift that many people actually had them now. Toward the end of his campaign, Eisenhower announced he would look at ending the Korean War and bringing the troops home.