Presidential election in the United States in 1948

‹  1944  •   •  1952 ›
41st presidential election
November 2, 1948
			Democratic Party
			Harry S. Truman / Albums Barkley
			electors					303
			be right				24.179.347
									49.6%
			Republican Party
			Thomas Dewey / Earl Warren
			electors					189
			be right				21,991,292
									45.1%
			Dixiecrat
			Strom Thurmond / Fielding L. Wright
			electors					39
			be right				1,175,930
									2.4%
Election results by state
28 states   Truman / Barkley						16 states   Dewey / Warren
4 states   Thurmond / Wright
President of the United States
Before the election Harry S. Truman Democratic Party						Elected Harry S. Truman Democratic Party

The 41st election of the President of the United States took place on November 2, 1948 . The incumbent Democratic President Harry S. Truman , who assumed the presidency in April 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt , won the election. The Republicans with their candidate Thomas E. Dewey could not convince despite disputes in the Democratic Party . Some southern states elected a third party in 1948: the Dixiecrats , a split from the Democrats that had no chance nationwide: the Dixiecrats won four states and received a vote from Tennessee . The outcome of this election is still considered to be one of the biggest surprises in the history of the American presidential election, as all polls predicted Truman's defeat.

Candidates

Both major parties tried to win the very popular World War General Dwight D. Eisenhower as a candidate, but he was not interested in a political office, unlike in 1952. He also turned down an offer from Truman for running for vice presidency.

Democrats

Democratic candidates:

• 

  President Harry S. Truman of Missouri

• 

  Senator
  Richard B. Russell from Georgia

The Democratic Party entered the race with incumbent Harry S. Truman, who had become president in April 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt . His running mate was Alben W. Barkley , a Senator from Kentucky . With the conservative Senator Richard B. Russell there was an internal party candidate for president, but Truman defeated Russell at the nomination party conference in July 1948 with 947 against 266 delegate votes.

republican

Republican candidates:

• 

  New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey

• 

  Senator Robert A. Taft from Ohio

• 

  Former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota

• 

  Senate President pro tempore Arthur H. Vandenberg from Michigan

• 

  California Governor Earl Warren

• 

  General Douglas MacArthur from New York

• 

  Representative Joseph William Martin from Massachusetts

With their victory in the 1946 congressional elections, the Republicans expected themselves to have a good chance of winning the presidency back after four consecutive defeats. The nomination was therefore fiercely contested. The primaries only brought a preliminary decision to the extent that General Douglas MacArthur had to retire after a poor result in Wisconsin . Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York , the winner of Wisconsin and Republican candidate in 1944 , subsequently lost twice to Harold Stassen , the surprisingly strong ex-governor of Minnesota , before his triumphant advance in Ohio was stopped by Senator Robert A. Taft there. Since Stassen lost to Dewey in Oregon , the convention in Philadelphia began without a clear favorite, which is why California Governor Earl Warren and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg from Michigan still figured out chances as compromise candidates. Ultimately, Dewey prevailed as he was given the best chance of success against the supposedly unpopular Truman. Earl Warren was nominated as a vice-presidential candidate.

Dixiecrats

• 

  South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond

The Dixiecrats were a newly formed party made up of Southern Democrats who disagreed with Truman's policies (especially the commitment to advocate gradual desegregation in the Southern States). As candidates they nominated Strom Thurmond with Fielding L. Wright as runner-up.

Progressive party

• 

  Ex-Vice President Henry A. Wallace

The Progressive Party , also a newly founded party, which advocates further social reforms in the sense of the New Deal , e.g. B. a general health insurance, and was mainly elected by workers and the black population, set up the former Democratic Vice President Henry A. Wallace . Glen H. Taylor was his runner-up for the presidency.

Election campaign

The election campaign in the autumn was marked above all by Truman's attacks on his political opponents, which were unusually harsh for an incumbent president, in particular on the Republican-dominated Congress, which had rejected a number of Truman's legislative initiatives during a special session in the summer and was therefore viewed by him as "idlers (do nothing) "Congress or as" the worst in my memory ".

In contrast to this, Dewey's campaign appearances, apart from criticism of the New Deal , were seldom specific, but were mostly limited to general statements and promises that parts of the press considered meaningless, sometimes even banal ("The future lies ahead" ) were designated.

Nevertheless, almost all commentators assumed a clear victory for Dewey, especially since the two new parties, the Dixiecrats and the Progressive Party, were split offs from the Democrats and seemed primarily to harm them. All opinion polls also signaled a clear lead of Dewey of up to 10 percentage points. On the other hand, reporter reports of the ever-increasing popularity of Truman's campaign appearances, where the audience with shouts like "Harry give them hell" ("Harry, make them hell hot") called for him to intensify his attacks, received little attention. The fact that Truman was practically the only one who was convinced of his victory to the end was generally dismissed as optimism of purpose.

Election day

Even when the first counts turned out to be much tighter than expected on election night, most radio commentators (television still played a minor role) agreed that "in the end" Dewey would clearly have the upper hand. The Chicago Daily Tribune already went to press with the popular headline " Dewey Defeats Truman " ("Dewey Defeats Truman"). However, its lead became smaller and smaller the more results from the big cities became known. When the results finally arrived from the western US, it was clear that Truman had, completely surprisingly, won a clear victory. In addition, the Democrats had won the congressional elections that were held at the same time and that they had lost in the 1946 mid-term elections.

analysis

A closer analysis of the election results showed that the Dixiecrats did indeed win some originally democratic states in the south, but there were only relatively few electors available, so that this loss was not too significant for the Democrats. More importantly, the Progressive Party fared much worse than expected in the major cities, and so the Democrats were able to keep several populous states in the northeast and California. What turned out to be decisive, however, was the voting behavior in the agricultural states of the Midwest, which, surprisingly, almost entirely fell to the Democrats. Obviously, the fear of the farmers and the rural population of a revision of the New Deal, which had significantly improved their living conditions, was much greater than anticipated, which is why Truman's aggressive campaign rhetoric fell on particularly fertile ground here.

Reactions

The election result was widely regarded as a sensation and sparked a number of reactions. Pollsters, for example, faced the harshest criticism because they had made completely wrong predictions about a presidential election for the second time in 12 years. In 1936 a close result had generally been predicted, and the Roosevelt landslide victory came as a complete surprise. Some institutes tried to justify themselves by stating that, given Dewey's supposedly clear lead, they had stopped their surveys weeks before the ballot for cost reasons and were therefore no longer able to register the change in mood in favor of Truman in the final phase of the election campaign. Many newspapers, some of them violent self-criticism, vowed to rely more on the perceptions of their reporters on site than on second-hand opinions.

Overall, the result from 1948 to this day is regarded as the greatest surprise in the history of the American presidential election and as a permanent warning to political actors, opinion pollers and journalists to consider an election dispute prematurely resolved.

Result

candidate	Political party	be right		electors
		number	percent
Harry S. Truman	democrat	24.179.347	49.6%	303
Thomas E. Dewey	republican	21,991,292	45.1%	189
Strom Thurmond	Dixiecrats	1,175,930	2.4%	39
Henry A. Wallace	Progressive	1,157,328	2.4%	0
total		48,503,897	99.5% 1	531

¹ Percentage missing at 100%: invalid votes / other candidates

266 votes were necessary for the election to the president. A voter from Tennessee was an unfaithful elector and voted against his party line for Strom Thurmond - with no further effect on the election result.

Movies

Harry Truman vs. Thomas Dewey . USA 2016, 41-minute documentary (CNN) by Kim Flitcroft for the series Race for the White House .

literature

• Donald Richard Deskins, Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett: Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2010, ISBN 978-0-472-11697-3 , pp. 385-395 (= Chapter 43: Harry S. Truman's Election. ).

Web links

Commons : US Presidential Election 1948  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files