1956 United States presidential election in California

1956 United States presidential election in California

← 1952 November 6, 1956 1960 →
Turnout86.56% (of registered voters) Decrease 0.29 pp
67.59% (of eligible voters) Decrease 6.48 pp[1]
 
Nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower Adlai Stevenson II
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Pennsylvania[2][3] Illinois
Running mate Richard Nixon Estes Kefauver
Electoral vote 32 0
Popular vote 3,027,668 2,420,135
Percentage 55.39% 44.27%

County Results

President before election

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican

Elected President

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican

The 1956 United States presidential election in California took place in November 1956 as part of the 1956 United States presidential election. State voters chose 32 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

The Democratic primary in California was seen as such a decisive win for Adlai Stevenson that it ended the insurgent Kefauver campaign.

California voted for the Republican incumbent, Dwight D. Eisenhower (with incumbent vice president and California native Richard Nixon as his running mate), in a landslide over the Democratic challenger, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. However, Stevenson did improve his performance in California from four years previous. California's result was about 4.3% more Democratic than the nation-at-large.

As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last presidential election in California where the Republican candidate won the counties of Alameda and San Francisco, both of which have become strongholds of the Democratic Party.

  1. ^ "Historical Voter Registration and Participation in Statewide General Elections 1910-2018" (PDF). California Secretary of State. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  2. ^ Although he was born in Texas and grew up in Kansas before his military career, at the time of his election Eisenhower was president of Columbia University and was, officially, a resident of New York. During his first term as president, he moved his private residence to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and officially changed his residency to Pennsylvania.
  3. ^ "The Presidents". David Leip. Retrieved September 27, 2017. Eisenhower's home state for the 1956 Election was Pennsylvania