Republican nominee Five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Democratic Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois . Eisenhower won the popular vote by eleven points , and carried every state outside the South . Eisenhower took the Republican nomination on the first ballot , defeating Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft and California Governor Earl Warren . After incumbent president Harry S. Truman declined to seek re-election , Stevenson won the Democratic nomination on the third ballot , defeating Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver , Georgia Senator Richard Russell Jr. , and former Commerce Secretary W. Averell Harriman . Eisenhower was the first professional soldier to be elected president since Ulysses S. Grant
Republican nomination
1952 Republican National Convention
1952 United States elections