carried Louisiana, making him the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state, or any state in the Deep South for that matter, since Rutherford Hayes had done so in 1876 during Reconstruction, Eisenhower was the first Republican to win re-election to the presidency since William McKinley. Eisenhower, who had won in twenty-one of the thirty-nine cities with a population above 250,000 in the 1952 election, won in twenty-eight of those cities in the 1956 election. He had won six of the eight largest cities in the Southern United States in the 1952 election and won seven of them with Atlanta being the only one to remain Democratic. This election was the last in which Massachusetts voted Republican until 1980 and the last in which Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia did so until 1972. Conversely this was the last election in which Mississippi voted Democratic until 1976, and is also the last election until 1976 when Alabama gave a majority of its electoral votes to the Democratic candidate. As of 2020, this remains the last time that Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, or North Carolina would back a losing Democratic presidential candidate. Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote): Results by state Close states Margin of victory less than 1% (24 electoral votes): Missouri, 0.22% (3,984 votes) Tennessee, 0.62% (5,781 votes) Margin of victory less than 5% (14 electoral votes): North Carolina, 1.33% (15,468 votes) Margin of victory over 5%, but under 10% (46 electoral votes) Arkansas, 6.64% (26,990 votes) Minnesota, 7.60% (101,777 votes) West Virginia, 8.16% (67,763 votes) Washington, 8.47% (97,428 votes) Kentucky, 9.09% (95,739 votes) Tipping point state: New Mexico, 16.00% (40,690 votes) (a) Alabama faithless elector W. F. Turner, who was pledged to Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver, instead cast his votes for Walter Burgwyn Jones, who was a circuit court judge in Turner's home town, and Herman Talmadge, governor of the neighboring state of Georgia. Because of the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states in 1959, the 1956 presidential election was the last in which there were 531 electoral votes. Statistics Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican) Gillespie County, Texas 92.61% Kenedy County, Texas 92.59% Kane County, Utah 90.20% Jackson County, Kentucky 88.35% Johnson County, Tennessee 87.44% Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic) Baker County, Georgia 96.07% Greene County, North Carolina 93.67% Berrien County, Georgia