Dwight Eisenhower very nearly chose not to run for reelection in 1956. What if he chose to retire?
On the Republican side, Nixon declares and quickly becomes the early frontrunner, despite Ike's backchannel efforts to find a challenger as in OTL 1960. Bill Knowland emerges as Nixon's main (conservative) opposition, but Nixon prevails and selects Gov. Christian Herter of Massachusetts as his running mate.
On the Democratic side, the contest is similar to OTL, although LBJ might make a run which might potentially divide the vote enough to make Averell Harriman the nominee. My guess is that Stevenson still emerges as the nominee, however, perhaps picking LBJ as his running mate.
In the general election, Nixon/Herter defeats Stevenson/Johnson by a comfortable margin, if smaller than Ike's victory over Stevenson four years earlier.
Going forward, how does an earlier President Nixon deal with the late '50s recession, the Cuban Revolution, and the U-2 spy plane incident? Does he win reelection in 1960, and who is his opponent?
What are people's thoughts? And any disagreements on the 1956 campaign dynamics I described?