The 1956 West Virginia gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 1956, to elect the governor of West Virginia.
Underwood's 1956 election as Governor of West Virginia marked the first election of a Republican to the office since 1928. He had defeated Charleston Mayor John T. Copenhaver by only 7,200 votes in the primary, and enjoyed a decisive victory against Democratic U.S. Representative Robert Mollohan in the general election by 63,000 votes. 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. Underwood had turned 34 years old only one day before the election, making him one of the youngest U.S. governors to have ever been elected.
The previous governors since 1932 had all been Democrats. His first act as governor was to go on the new medium of television and inform every state employee that they were fired. He stated that this was the only way to destroy the corrupt "machine" system. He later advocated an organized civil service and retirement pension system, and provided temporary employment relief for low-income families.
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.
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