President Miguel Alemán Valdés appointed his Minister of the Interior, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, as the PRI's presidential candidate.

The National Action Party (PAN) nominated Efraín González Luna [es] as their first-ever presidential candidate.

[4] Former Governor of Baja California Sur Francisco José Múgica (by then estranged from the PRI) made some statements during the campaign accusing Ruiz Cortines of having collaborated with the invaders during the 1914 US occupation of Veracruz.

Ruiz Cortines denied the accusations and claimed that at the time he was in Mexico City in service of the Revolution under the command of Alfredo Robles Domínguez and Heriberto Jara Corona.

These results set off a wave of protests in several states by Henríquez supporters, which were violently suppressed by the administration of Miguel Alemán Valdés.