Three words — Taft Hartley Act. Taft wouldn’t have won easily, if at all. Ike’s Electoral vote totals were close to those of FDR’s (472, 523, 449, 432). Taft was nearly beaten in his Senate reelection campaign in 1944. By 1952 he was suspected by fellow conservative Republicans of being soft on socialism, which is ironic, because turncoat Democrat and “me-too” politician Willkie had beaten Taft in the 1940 race to the Republican nomination. Had Taft won the nod in 1952, and then won election, his Vice President would have been President by end of 1953, when Taft died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft#Distrust_by_Old_Right
Taft/MacArthur would’ve beaten Stevenson in ‘52. Taft still had the advantage of 2 decades of uninterrupted control by the Dems (party fatigue) and an extremely unpopular Truman hurting the ticket. One reason Ike had to ponder running as a Dem would’ve been a losing proposition in 1952 (Hoover bolted the Dems in 1920 for the same reason).
A LOT of working people didn’t mind Taft-Hartley, if you just told them the provisions. /They just were told the name was bad.