Eisenhower Turned a Political Win Into a Landslide Win

In 1952, one of the most consequential presidential elections took place. The Democratic Party had been in power for 20 years, winning five consecutive presidential elections. It also controlled Congress for 18 of those years. That changed when 1952 ushered in a new era of Republican presidential politics — the Republicans would win four of the next six presidential elections, narrowly losing in 1976 in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis.

The key to that Republican victory in 1952 was simple: Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower was the most popular figure in America, more popular than sitting President Harry Truman, not a particularly difficult feat given that according to the Gallup poll as the year opened, just 23% of the American public approved of Truman's handling of the presidency.

The 1952 election came at a time when American spirits were low. Two years into a bitter and unpopular war in Korea, charges of Communism subversion with the Alger Hiss and Rosenberg cases fresh in the American mind, and Senator Joseph McCarthy riding high, left the nation in an ugly mood and bitterly divided.

Eisenhower's decision to run

Against this background Eisenhower decided to run for president. He had been a potential presidential candidate since he returned from guiding the alliance that won the Second World War. In 1948, President Truman had offered to step aside in his favor if he would run as the Democratic candidate for president. 

Eisenhower eventually overcame his initial reluctance to become involved in politics. He was determined to complete the internationalization of the Republican party -- something he had believed that the election of Senator Robert Taft would do. Eisenhower also believed that a fifth Republican defeat for the presidency might mean the end of the two-party system.

Eisenhower won the nomination over Taft after a bitter campaign. Few people realize how close that contest was. Only the last-minute switch of convention votes from the state of Wisconsin put Eisenhower over the top.

Eisenhower’s Democratic opponent proved not to be Truman -- who bowed out-- but the former Governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson. Truman said he would have run if Taft were the Republican candidate whom he feared would try to underdo the changes brought about by the New Deal. Stevenson was sophisticated, witty, articulate, and something of an intellectual in politics, but he proved a poor campaigner who had little interest in running for president. In general, the Democrats seemed out of exhausted and out of touch with the vast changes the country had undergone in the past 20 years: the worst depression in American history and four years of a bloody war. 

The Republicans seized the campaign initiative building their program around the slogan KC2: the tragic mess in Korea, Corruption in Washington, and Communist subversion. The Republicans also made extensive use of television for the first time, foreshadowing what would become common in the future. Simple TV ads of Eisenhower answering citizen’s questions were both new and effective, playing off his likeability. “I Like Ike,” the slogan that hatched early in the campaign, worked because Eisenhower seemed genuine in these ads. Democrats rejected television advertising with Stevenson adamantly refusing to demean himself.

Democrats couldn't get a foothold

From the beginning the Democrats were on the defensive and were unable to gain traction. Their slogan “You Never Had it So Good,” sounded crass and never caught hold with the American public. It was proving difficult to make Eisenhower into a villain. Polling showed Eisenhower with a steady 5-6% lead throughout the summer into September. Democratic hopes briefly flared when a story broke involving Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon having a secret campaign fund to pay personal expenses. The story petered out with Nixon making a dramatic television appearance to defend himself and then it turned out that Stevenson had a similar fund.

President Truman began campaigning for Stevenson in September, hoping to duplicate the success he had in 1948 in overcoming the Republican lead in the polls that year. But he had become bitter at Eisenhower for what he believed was his catering to the worst excesses of the right-wing Republicans, especially Senator Joseph McCarthy. Truman was particularly offended by Eisenhower failing to defend his mentor, General George Marshall, from charges of communist sympathy by McCarthy. Truman’s campaigning hurt Stevenson by the vituperation of his attacks on Eisenhower. Truman particularly was sensitive of charges that he had mishandled the war in Korea, especially as the war gradually became the major issue of the campaign. 

Eisenhower’s attacks on the war were moderate. He talked about the need to end the war while criticizing Truman's conduct. The public trusted Eisenhower the General to somehow get the country out of the war, which infuriated the Democrats. A Gallup poll in September posed a question about which candidate could manage the Korean conflict. Eisenhower overwhelmingly was favored over Stevenson by 67%-9%. 

'I will go to Korea'

In late October with the election drifting away from them, Stevenson and Truman demanded, even taunted Eisenhower to explain to the American public how he would end the war. They would have been wiser to have steered clear of the issue which clearly hurt them. 

On Oct. 24, with the election two weeks away, Eisenhower went on television and announced that if elected his first action would be to go to Korea for a personal analysis of the war. “I will go to Korea” turned a moderate Eisenhower victory into a potential landslide. The Democrats demanded that he explain what steps he would take to end the war, but the public reacted as if the issue had now passed into the hands of the country’s greatest military hero.

The Korean issue clinched the election for Eisenhower. His was a personal landslide victory, 55%-45%. He carried four southern states, something unheard of for a Republican. Stevenson’s defeat was overwhelming. He did not win a single state north of the Mason-Dixon Line or west of Arkansas.

Six months into Eisenhower’s presidency a truce was signed that ended the fighting in Korea. Eisenhower regarded ending the war as his greatest success as president. He claimed, and historians agree, that his threat to use atomic weapons to end the war convinced the North Koreans and Chinese to seek a truce. Eisenhower would later boast that one of his proudest accomplishments was that no American soldier died during his time in office. He made sure that none died in Korea on his watch.  As George Orwell once wrote of Ghandi: compared with other leading figures of time, what a clean smell Eisenhower managed to leave behind.