1956 United States presidential election in Alabama

← 1952 November 6, 1956[1] 1960 →

Nominee Adlai Stevenson Dwight D. Eisenhower Party Democratic Republican Home state Illinois Pennsylvania[2][b] Running mate Estes Kefauver Richard Nixon Electoral vote 10[a] 0 Popular vote 280,844 195,694 Percentage 56.52% 39.39%

County results Stevenson   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Eisenhower   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%

President before election Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican Elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican

The1956 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 6, 1956, as part of the1956 United States presidential election. Alabama voters chose eleven^[3] representatives, or electors, to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president. In Alabama, voters voted for electors individually instead of as a slate, as in the other states.

Since the 1890s, Alabama had been effectively a one-party state ruled by the Democratic Party.Disenfranchisement of almost all African-Americans and a large proportion ofpoor whites viapoll taxes, literacy tests^[4] and informal harassment had essentially eliminated opposition parties outside ofUnionistWinston County and presidential campaigns in a few nearbynorthern hill counties. The only competitive statewide elections during this period were thus Democratic Party primaries — limited to white voters until the landmark court case ofSmith v. Allwright, following which Alabama introduced the Boswell Amendment — ruled unconstitutional inDavis v. Schnellin 1949,^[5] although substantial increases in black voter registration would not occur until after the late 1960sVoting Rights Act.

Unlike other Deep South states, the state GOP would after disenfranchisement rapidly and permanently turn“lily-white”, with the last black delegates at anyRepublican National Convention servingin 1920.^[6] Nevertheless, Republicans only briefly gained from their hard lily-white policy by exceeding forty percent inthree 1920 House of Representatives races,^[7] and in the 1928 presidential election whenSenatorJames Thomas Heflin embarked on a nationwide speaking tour, partially funded by the Ku Klux Klan, againstRoman Catholic Democratic nomineeAl Smith,^[8] so that RepublicanHerbert Hoover lost by only seven thousand votes.

FollowingSmith, Alabama's loyalty to the national Democratic Party would be broken whenHarry S. Truman, seeking a strategy to win theCold War against the radically egalitarian rhetoric ofCommunism,^[9] launched the first Civil Rights bill since Reconstruction. Southern Democrats became enraged and forthe 1948 presidential election, Alabama's Democratic presidential elector primary chose electors who were pledged to not vote for incumbent President Truman.^[10] Truman was entirely excluded from the Alabama ballot,^[11] and Alabama's electoral votes went toStrom Thurmond — labelled as the “Democratic” nominee — by a margin only slightly smaller thanFranklin D. Roosevelt’s four victories. Despite this, in 1950 loyalists regained control of the ruling party and few would supportRepublican nomineeDwight D. Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election.^[12]

In the four ensuing years, Alabama’s ruling elite was jolted by the Supreme Court’sBrown v. Board of Education ruling, which ruled unconstitutional thede jure segregated school system in the South. The state attempted to use the doctrine of “interposition” to place its sovereignty above the Court and maintainde jure segregation, although incumbent GovernorJim Folsom viewed the idea as futile^[13] despite signing the statutes.^[14] The state would also be affected by theMontgomery bus boycott, and as a result an independent elector slate,not pledged to any candidate, would be nominated.^[15]

• Baldwin
• Franklin
• Jefferson
• Macon
• Mobile
• Montgomery
• St. Clair
• Shelby

As expected by the polls,Alabama voted for theDemocratic nomineesAdlai Stevenson II and running mateTennessee SenatorEstes Kefauver, with 56.52 percent of the popular vote againstRepublican nomineesincumbent PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower and Vice PresidentRichard Nixon, with 39.39 percent. Eisenhower's performance was nonetheless the second-best by a Republican in Alabama since 1884, when many blacks were still enfranchised, while Stevenson declined by eight percent compared to his 1952 performance. Eisenhower's main gains were in upper- and middle-class urban areas, where wealthier whites aligned strongly with GOP economic policies.^[21] The unpledged slate had little support and consequently did not make the impact it did in South Carolina, Mississippi or Louisiana, cracking twenty percent only inLowndes County.

Stevenson received ten of Alabama's eleven electoral votes; the eleventh was cast by afaithless elector forWalter B. Jones.^[22][23]

As of the2024 presidential election^[update], this is the last election in whichMacon County voted for a Republican nominee, and the only election since1872 the majority-black county has voted Republican.^[d] It is also the last timeHouston County voted for a Democratic nominee,^[24] and the last time that the state has supported a losing Democratic nominee or that a Republican won two terms without ever carrying the state.

• United States presidential elections in Alabama

• 1956 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Alabama
• 1956 Alabama elections

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