The Republican nomination was primarily contested by Eisenhower, a general, widely popular for his leadership in World War II, and the conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft.

The fight for the Republican nomination was between General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who became the candidate of the party's moderate Eastern Establishment; Senator Robert A. Taft from Ohio, the longtime leader of the party's conservative wing; Governor Earl Warren of California, who appealed to Western delegates and independent voters; and former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, who still had a base of support in the Midwest.

The moderates tended to be interventionists who felt that the country needed to fight the Cold War overseas and confront the Soviet Union in Eurasia.

The moderates were also concerned with ending the Republicans' losing streak in presidential elections and felt that the popular Eisenhower had the best chance of beating the Democrats.

It was also felt that the party winning the White House would have more incentive to rein in radicals and demagogues such as Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Taft had unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1940 and 1948 presidential elections but lost both times to moderate candidates from New York: Wilkie and Dewey respectively.

At the age of 63, Taft felt that it was his last chance to run for president so his friends and supporters, encompassing many party regulars, worked diligently on his behalf.

When the 1952 Republican National Convention opened in Chicago, most political experts rated Taft and Eisenhower as about equal in delegate vote totals.

[8] Though there were initial suggestions that Warren could earn the party's vice-presidential slot for the second successive election if he withdrew and endorsed Eisenhower, he ultimately chose not to do so.

Nixon was known as an aggressive campaigner and a fierce anti-communist but as one who shied away from some of the more extreme ideas of the party's right wing, including isolationism and the dismantling of the New Deal.

Despite not earning the presidential or the vice-presidential nomination, Warren would be appointed as Chief Justice of the United States in October 1953, and Stassen would hold various positions within Eisenhower's administration.

Since the convention was being held in his home state, Governor Stevenson, who still proclaimed that he was not a presidential candidate, was asked to give the welcoming address to the delegates.

Many of his radio and television commercials discussed topics such as education, inflation, ending the Korean War, and other issues that were thought to appeal to women.

[20] Eisenhower campaigned by attacking "Korea, Communism, and Corruption", issues that the Republicans regarded as the failures of the outgoing Truman administration to solve.

"[24] Stevenson, Truman, and other Democrats campaigning that fall also criticized Senators Joseph McCarthy, William E. Jenner, and other right-wing Republicans for what they believed were reckless and unwarranted attacks and congressional investigations into leading government officials and public servants.

[25] In a Salt Lake City speech Stevenson stated that right-wing Republicans were "quick with accusations, with defamatory hints and whispering campaigns when they see a chance to scare or silence those with whom they disagree.

[27] Stevenson ridiculed right-wing Republicans "who hunt Communists in the Bureau of Wildlife and Fisheries while hesitating to aid the gallant men and women who are resisting the real thing in the front lines of Europe and Asia. ...

[26] Neither Stevenson nor Sparkman had been a part of the Truman administration, and both largely ignored its record, preferred to hark back to the Roosevelt's New Deal achievements, and warned against a repetition of the Great Depression under President Herbert Hoover if Eisenhower was elected.

The historian Herbert Parmet stated that, "although Stevenson tried to separate his campaign from Truman's record, his efforts failed to dispel the widespread recognition that, for a divided America, torn by paranoia and unable to understand what had disrupted the anticipated tranquility of the postwar world, the time for change had really arrived.

"[32] Eisenhower retained his enormous personal popularity from his leading role in World War II, and huge crowds turned out to see him around the nation.

The staunchly-conservative New York Daily News called him "Adelaide" Stevenson even though he had a reputation as a ladies' man, divorced in 1949, and remained single throughout 1952.

A notable event of the 1952 campaign concerned a scandal that emerged when Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's running mate, was accused by several newspapers of receiving $18,000 in undeclared "gifts" from wealthy donors.

Eisenhower and his aides even considered dropping Nixon from the ticket and picking Senator William Knowland as a replacement running mate.

In this speech, Nixon denied the charges against him, gave a detailed account of his modest financial assets, and offered a glowing assessment of Eisenhower's candidacy.

Despite the red-baiting of the Republicans' right wing, the campaign on the whole was conducted with a considerable degree of dignity, and Stevenson was seen as reinvigorating a Democratic Party that had become exhausted after 20 years in power and as refreshing its appeal with younger voters.

The 1952 election campaign was the first one to make use of the new medium of television, partly by the efforts of Rosser Reeves, the head of Ted Bates, Inc., a leading advertising firm.

Studying Douglas MacArthur's keynote speech at the Republican Convention in July, Reeves believed that the general's words were "powerful" but "unfocused" and "all over the map".

Eisenhower became upset when the CBS correspondent Dave Schoenbrun pointed that out and suggested him to try to alter his poses to make his forehead less noticeable and to apply makeup so that it would not shine from the lighting.

His great military prestige, combined with the public's weariness with the conflict, gave Eisenhower the final boost he needed to win.

Despite the Republican win in Florida, that year was the last time that a Democrat has won Collier County before southwestern Florida was turned into a growing Sun Belt Republican stronghold, and it was also the last time that a Democrat has won Aiken County, South Carolina, before the "Solid South" would collapse in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement.