The 1956 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 6, 1956. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. For the previous five decades Virginia had almost completely disenfranchised its black and poor white populations through the use of a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests. So restricted was suffrage in this period that it has been calculated that a third of Virginia’s electorate during the first half of the twentieth century comprised state employees and officeholders.
This limited electorate allowed Virginian politics to be controlled for four decades by the Byrd Organization, as progressive “antiorganization” factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all their potential electorate to vote. Historical fusion with the “Readjuster” Democrats, defection of substantial proportions of the Northeast-aligned white electorate of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia over free silver, and an early move towards a “lily white” Jim Crow party meant Republicans retained a small but permanent number of legislative seats and local offices in the western part of the state.
In 1928, the GOP did carry the state’s presidential electoral votes due to anti-Catholicism against Al Smith, but it was 1952 before any real changes occurred. In-migration from the traditionally Republican Northeast turned growing Washington, D.C., and Richmond suburbs Republican not just in presidential elections but in Congressional ones as well, although the Republicans made no gains in the state legislature where all their few seats remained in the rural west.
1954 saw Virginia’s politics severely jolted by Brown v. Board of Education — one of whose component cases Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, originated from a student protest in the state. Despite calls by Governor Thomas B. Stanley for a “calm” and “dispassionate” response, the Byrd machine recognised that segregation could unite most of Virginia’s electorate behind it and avert criticism of its other policies. State representative Howard W. Smith played a major role drafting the “Southern Manifesto”, which was signed by Virginia’s entire Congressional delegation, including its two GOP Representatives. Although Eisenhower refused to publicly endorse Brown, the fact that he had appointed Brown author Earl Warren meant that there was substantial anger in the Southside, and as in 1948 a “states’ rights” ticket, this time headed by Virginian former Commissioner of Internal Revenue T. Coleman Andrews, was filled and placed on the Virginia ballot in mid-September, when a poll said that 28 percent of likely voters would back a states’ rights candidate if on the ballot.
Predictions
Results
Results by county or independent city
Analysis
Despite the doubts of the Sunday Star and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Virginia voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower, over the Democratic nominee, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson and States' Rights Party nominee Andrews. Eisenhower ultimately won the national election with 57.37 percent of the vote.
Although Andrews cut into support for both candidates, Eisenhower improved upon his 1952 margin over Stevenson, although the state was marginally less Republican relative to the nation than in 1952. Andrews’ support was centered in the Southside, and he won an absolute majority in Prince Edward County, the epicenter of “Massive Resistance” to school integration and the home of his state chairman Robert B. Crawford. Andrews was nonetheless a weak candidate and poor campaigner, limiting severely his ability to attract segregationists dissatisfied with both major parties.
The major change from 1952 was a rapid trend of the modest but growing black electorate towards Eisenhower: whereas in 1952 he had won less than a quarter of black voters in Richmond and Norfolk, it is believed he won over three-quarters in 1956. , this is the last election when majority-black Charles City County has voted for a Republican presidential candidate.
This was the first time that a Republican carried Virginia twice. Goochland County voted Republican for the first time since 1888. Prince George County since 1892, and Prince William County for the first time ever.
This election marks the most recent time Virginia voted to the left of Maryland, New York or Massachusetts (by margin of victory).