Presidential Preference Primaries: A Statistical Analysis

In the spring of 1956, while taking a class at The American University entitled "Participation in Politics," the writer was given the assignment of doing a paper on the presidential primaries to be held that year in the state of Minnesota.The results of these elections showed that Senator Estes Kefauver had won the Democratic primary by defeating the former Governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson. The vote was 245,885 for Kefauver and 186,723 for Stevenson. In the Republican primary President Eisenhower received o 192,482 votes as compared to Senator Knowland's 2,774. These results showed that 432,608 votes had been cast in the Democratic primary and only 195,256 in the Republican primary. Chairman Butler of the Democratic Party said on the day following the elections that these figures indicated definitely that the Democrats would win the state in the November election.