Eisenhower carried Missouri in 1952 by nearly 30K votes:
959,429 50.71 929,830 49.14
In 1956, he lost it by about 4K votes:
914,289 49.89 918,273 50.11
The turnout in 1956 dropped by almost 47,000 votes. Nationwide, the turnout went up by about 270,000 votes.
In 1956, though his Nationwide vote portion grew from 55.18% to 57.37%, Eisenhower received a smaller portion of the vote in 19 states, as follows:
State 1956 Republican % 1952 Republican % Vote gain/loss % vote change
California 3,027,668 55.39 2,897,310 56.35 130358 0.96
Colorado 394,479 60.04 379,782 60.27 14697 0.23
Idaho 166,979 61.17 180,707 65.41 13728 4.24
Iowa 729,187 59.06 808,906 63.75 79719 4.69
Kansas 566,878 65.44 616,302 68.77 49424 3.33
Minnesota 719,302 53.68 763,211 55.33 43909 1.65
Mississippi 60,685 24.46 112,966 39.56 52281 15.1
Missouri 914,289 49.89 959,429 50.71 45140 0.82
Montana 154,933 57.13 157,394 59.39 2461 2.26
Nebraska 378,108 65.51 421,603 69.15 43495 3.64
Nevada 56,049 57.97 50,502 61.45 5547 3.48
North Dakota 156,766 61.72 191,712 70.97 34946 9.25
Oregon 406,393 55.21 420,815 60.54 14422 5.33
SouthCarolina 75,700 25.18 168,082 49.28 92382 24.1
South Dakota 171,569 58.39 203,857 69.27 32288 10.88
Tennessee 462,288 49.21 446,147 49.99 16141 0.78
Virginia 386,459 55.37 349,037 56.32 37422 0.95
Washington 620,430 53.91 599,107 54.33 21323 0.42
Wyoming 74,573 60.08 81,049 62.71 6476 2.63
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Mississippi and South Carolina were aberrations as there were independent tickets for Eisenhower that lowered his GOP vote totals. Except for Virginia and Tennessee (and Kefauver was the Dem VP candidate), the remaining 15 states are all west of the Mississippi River. So, clearly, Eisenhower was less popular in the West due to the farm economy or other reasons.
Perhaps agricultural issues explain how he narrowly lost Missouri. But it otherwise seems hard to explain when one considers these realities:
- he did better in 1956 in 31 states,
- he turned defeats in 1952 into victories in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Louisiana in 1956 and nearly did so in North Carolina.
Edit: Oh, I should have noted that from 1904 until 2008, except for 1956, Missouri voted with the winner every single time, for 25 out of 26 Presidential elections. Between William McKinley in 1900, and Barack Obama in 2008, 1956 really sticks out as a sore thumb. Of course, this isn't relevant in explaining the 1956 results, but it does accentuate how much of an outlier the 1956 result actually is.
I don't have access to county data to see if Eisenhower did worse enough in rural counties to explain the loss, or if big city machines and perhaps some fraud (St Louis and Kansas City) might have accounted for this loss. I appreciate any scholarly insight others might have.
