Eisenhower won the 1956 presidential election in a landslide and maintained positive approval ratings throughout his tenure, but the launch of Sputnik 1 and a poor economy contributed to Republican losses in the 1958 elections. In the 1960 presidential election, Vice President Richard Nixon lost by a narrow margin to Kennedy. His reputation improved after the release of his private papers in the 1970s. Polls of historians and political scientists rank Eisenhower in the top quartile of presidents. Eisenhower suggested in late 1951 that he would not oppose any effort to nominate him for president, although he still refused to seek the nomination actively. In January 1952, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. announced that Eisenhower's name would be entered in the March New Hampshire primary, even though he had not yet officially entered the race. The result in New Hampshire was a solid Eisenhower victory with 46,661 votes to 35,838 for Taft and 6,574 for Stassen.
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