| Year: | 1956 |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Image Size2: | 150 |
| Date: | August 13 - 17, 1956 |
| Venue: | International Amphitheatre |
| City: | Chicago, Illinois |
| Presidential Nominee: | Adlai Stevenson |
| Presidential Nominee State: | Illinois |
| Vice Presidential Nominee: | Estes Kefauver |
| Vice Presidential Nominee State: | Tennessee |
| Keynote Speaker: | Gov. Frank G. Clement of Tennessee |
| Previous Year: | 1952 |
| Next Year: | 1960 |
The 1956 Democratic National Convention nominated former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for president and Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee for vice president. It was held in the International Amphitheatre on the South Side of Chicago from August 13 to August 17, 1956. Unsuccessful candidates for the presidential nomination included Governor W. Averell Harriman of New York, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri.
The convention was marked by a "free vote" for the vice presidential nomination in which the winner, Kefauver, defeated Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts., this was the last time any presidential or vice presidential nomination of either the Democratic or Republican parties, went past the first ballot.
As the unsuccessful 1952 Democratic Party presidential nominee, Stevenson had the highest stature of the active candidates. Despite a number of primary wins by Kefauver, Stevenson managed to pull back and win California and come into the convention with momentum. However Stevenson was widely seen as having between 400 to 600 of the 6871/2 delegates he needed to secure the nomination.[1]
The 1956 Democratic convention was held before that year's Republican National Convention. This was unusual, as since 1864, in every election but 1888, Democrats had held their convention second. It has become an informal tradition that the party holding the White House (which, accordingly, in 1956 had been the Republican Party) hosts their convention second, but it is unclear when this tradition began. Democrats had held the White House and held their conventions second between 1936 and 1952, but it is unclear whether they scheduled their conventions second in these years because of their White House incumbency, or whether they scheduled them second because it was traditional that Democratic National Conventions had been held after the Republican National Convention.[2]
This was the second election in which conventions were televised live coast-to-coast. Television had, by 1956, become the dominant medium of popular news coverage. To adjust to the medium of television, the convention was condensed in length compared to previous years, with daytime sessions being largely eliminated and the amount of welcoming speeches and parliamentary organization speeches being decreased (such as seconding speeches for vice-presidential candidates, which were eliminated). Sessions were also scheduled in order to maximize exposure to prime-time audience.[3]
With regard to the growing Civil Rights Movement, the platform called for voting rights, equal employment opportunities, and the desegregation of public schools. Relative to the Republicans, the Democrats favored greater reliance on the United Nations, multilateral disarmament, more spending for programs relating to social welfare and agriculture, "a full and integrated program of development, protection, management and conservation of natural resources," and the use of peaceful atomic energy.
Former President Harry S. Truman, whose support for Stevenson in 1952 helped secure him the nomination, in a surprise move decided to oppose to his renomination in 1956, instead favoring Harriman. This was seen as opening up the Presidential nomination, with a number of candidates coming forward.
As well as Stevenson's 400 to 600 of the required 6871/2 delegates there were 202 pledged to Kefauver due to his primary wins and New York's delegation pledged to Harriman. There were also eight states with favorite son nominees which meant that the state was free to switch.[4]
One of these favorite sons was Lyndon Johnson from Texas, at the time the Senate Majority Leader who had the support of prominent southern legislative leaders Senator Richard Russell and fellow Texan Sam Rayburn, the House Speaker.[5] Although at first Johnson was not running more than a token campaign, he believed that Truman's announcement had opened the nomination up.
Despite all the maneuvering Stevenson won convincingly on the first ballot with 9051/2 delegates over Harriman's 210, with Johnson only winning the 80 votes of the Texas and Mississippi delegations.[6]
The roll call, as reported in Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, pp. 294–298:
| Presidential Balloting | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | 1st | |
| Stevenson | 905.5 | |
| Harriman | 210 | |
| Johnson | 80 | |
| Symington | 45.5 | |
| Chandler | 36.5 | |
| Davis | 33 | |
| Battle | 32.5 | |
| Timmerman | 23.5 | |
| Lausche | 5.5 | |
Presidential Balloting / 4th Day of Convention (August 16, 1956)
The highlight of the 1956 Democratic Convention came when Stevenson, in an effort to create excitement for the ticket, made the surprise announcement that the convention's delegates would choose his running mate.
Stevenson decided not to reselect his 1952 running mate John Sparkman. This set off a desperate scramble among several candidates to win the nomination. A good deal of the excitement of the vice-presidential race came from the fact that the candidates had only one hectic day to campaign among the delegates before the voting began. The two leading contenders were Senator Kefauver, who retained the support of his primary delegates, and John F. Kennedy, who, as a first term Senator from Massachusetts, was relatively unknown at that point. Kennedy surprised the experts by surging into the lead on the second ballot; at one point he was only 39 votes shy of winning. However, a number of states then left their "favorite son" candidates and switched to Kefauver, giving him the victory. Kennedy then gave a gracious concession speech. The narrow defeat raised his profile and helped Kennedy's long-term presidential chances; by losing to Kefauver he avoided any blame for Stevenson's expected loss to Eisenhower in November. The vice presidential nomination vote, which required three separate ballots, was (as of 2020) the last multi-balloted contest held at a quadrennial political convention of any major U.S. political party for the presidency or vice presidency.
Candidates
The vote totals in the vice presidential balloting are recorded in the following table, which also comes from Bain & Parris.
| Vice Presidential Balloting | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | 1st (Before Shifts) | 1st (After Shifts) | 2nd (Before Shifts) | 2nd (During Shifts) | 2nd (After Shifts) | Unanimous | |
| Kefauver | 466.5 | 483.5 | 551.5 | 551.5 | 755.5 | 1,372 | |
| Kennedy | 294.5 | 304 | 618 | 648 | 589 | ||
| Gore | 178 | 178 | 110.5 | 80.5 | 13.5 | ||
| Wagner | 162.5 | 162.5 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 6 | ||
| Humphrey | 134 | 134.5 | 74.5 | 74.5 | 2 | ||
| Hodges | 40 | 40 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | ||
| Maner | 33 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Collins | 28.5 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Anderson | 16 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Clement | 13.5 | 13.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | ||
| Brown | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | ||
| Symington | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Johnson | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Not Voting | 3 | 3 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 5.5 | ||
Vice Presidential Balloting / 5th Day of Convention (August 17, 1956)
The Democratic convention preceded the 1956 Republican convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California. At the GOP gathering, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon were nominated for reelection.
On November 6, Stevenson and Kefauver lost the election in a landslide.