William C. Marland Democratic Cecil H. Underwood Republican The 1956 West Virginia gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 1956, to elect the governor of West Virginia.

[2] Only a week prior to the election, it was discovered that Mollohan had received $20,000 and two cars from a coal operator on a strip mine at a male reformatory in Pruntytown while Mollohan was superintendent of the institution.

His first act as governor was to go on the new medium of television and inform every state employee that they were fired.

He later advocated an organized civil service and retirement pension system, and provided temporary employment relief for low-income families.

[1] Although in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision educational desegregation was a live issue across much of the south and the border areas in 1956, it was less so in West Virginia with the Democratic candidate not signing the Southern Manifesto and Underwood continuing his Democratic predecessor William C. Marland's desegregation of West Virginia schools and support of civil rights legislation.