Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Lace ‘Em Up’s Presidential Election series; Today we will be going over the Election of 1948 as incumbent president, Harry Truman is in the fight of his political life as his up against some insurmountable odds with the possiblity of him getting re-elected being put into question.
Harry Truman: The Accidental President
Following the passing of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12th, 1945 his Vice President for 82 days, Harry S. Truman was sworn in that same day as the 33rd U.S. President with many wondering how this lesser known Missouri Senator who never wanted to be the VP could possibly be able to follow up one of the all-time best presidents in American History and to say that things were tough once Truman became president would be a huge understatement.
For starters, Truman had to finish the remainder of World War II as the Empire of Japan continued to fight despite their allies: Germany and Italy surrendering years earlier, so Truman made the decision to use two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as way to bring an end to the war. While the decision to use nuclear weapons was controversial even today, Japan would officially surrender on the second of September 1945 thereby ending the deadliest war in world history.
Following this, President Truman dealt with foreign affairs which saw attempts at reducing communist influence around the globe which would soon spark the beginnings of the Cold War. While this was happening, Truman supported ‘The Marshall Plan’ to provide aid to Japan and European nations affected by the war in order to prevent another world war from cropping up in the future.
Back in the U.S. Truman had to tackle problems like union strikes, multiple accounts of food, gas and housing shortages and a post war inflation, however this would be no easy tasks as the Republican Party reclaimed seats in Congress following their victory in the 1946 midterms and they were determined to block all of Truman’s legislation which led to the president suffering a 36% approval rating and many Americans (as well as his own party) felt that his chances for re-election were beyond hopeless.
Governor Thomas E. Dewey
With the GOP back in control of Congress, the Republicans felt confident of victory in the 1948 presidential election and this led to a few familiar faces running once again for the party’s nomination. Names like Thomas Dewey, Arthur Vandenburg, Robert Taft, Douglas MacArthur and Harold Stassen were all in the running for the nomination as well as Earl Warren, the Governor of California and future Supreme Court Justice.
Dewey was once again the frontrunner in the early stages, but the party’s conservative wing ran two strong challengers in Taft and Stassen with both men having their own problems with the New York Governor.
As a result of this, Dewey’s campaign team led by Herbert Brownell Jr. were able to make backroom deals with many delegates and powerful politicians in order to get the support Dewey needed. Combine this with Dewey’s remarkable performance against Harold Stassen in a radio debate regarding the Communist Party and sure enough, Thomas E. Dewey was once again the Republican Party’s nominee for president.
Earl Warren, who was originally Dewey’s first pick for running mate back in 1944 was finally on the presidential ticket in 1948 and with the governors of two major swing states at the head of the GOP ticket gave off the impression that Dewey and Warren would emerge victorious come election day.
Truman’s On the Warpath
Many within the Democratic Party attempted to find someone else to run as their candidate including famed World War II General, Dwight D. Eisenhower with Truman reportedly telling Eisenhower that if General MacArthur won the Republican Party’s nomination for president, then Truman would run as Eisenhower’s running mate for the Democrats, but Eisenhower would mention in January of 1948 that he wouldn’t run as a candidate for either the Democrats or the Republicans.
With Eisenhower’s refusal to run and many other Democrats gaining little support, Harry S. Truman attended the Democratic National Convention after winning the party’s nomination and he chose Alben Barkley, the former U.S. Senator turned Senate Minority Leader from Kentucky as his running mate.
Truman announced that he would be running his campaign on a platform that supports desegregating the military and passing civil rights for African Americans among other things.
Truman also gave a speech calling out the 80th Republican Congress as “The Do-Nothing Congress” as they refuse to pass legislation his been calling for, only for the Republicans to run a candidate who plans to run of the same ideas Truman has been looking to pass.
Truman further calls out Congress to do something when he says the following at the DNC: “My Duty as president, requires that I use every means within my power to get the laws that people need on matters of such importance and urgency, I am therefore calling this congress back into session on 26th of July!”
This move shocked many, including the Republicans who refused to pass any of the legislation that they claimed to support when Congress came back into session on July 26th 1948 thereby proving Truman’s point about hyprocisy and ineffectiveness of the GOP to live up to their promises.
Political Polling & Media Bias
Political analysts predicting the outcome of an election was nothing new prior to 1948, but this election is perhaps the most famous example of how prediction polling can really shape the narrative as the majority of pollsters had Dewey defeating Truman with some estatimating around 5-15 points.
Even the Gallup Poll, which accurately predicted that FDR who destroy Alf Landon in the 1936 election had conducted nine polls following both the Republican and Democratic conventions and all of them predicted that Dewey was going to defeat the incumbent president not to mention the split within the Democratic Party led many voters and politicians to believe that a new president was going to annointed by election day.
Newspapers, magazines and even radio personalities were so confident that Dewey was going to win that they not only mentioned it constantly in the media but in the case of the Chicago Tribune they even printed out thousands of newspapers predicting Dewey’s victory before the election was over…Similar to what happened with Charles Evans Hughes in the 1916 election.
States Rights’ Democrats aka The Dixiecrats
While President Harry Truman was able to get his party’s nomination, that very same party was divided into three as the more liberal and conservative wings of the party broke away in protest against both the president and his platform for the election.
The southern wing of the Democratic Party, who had been frustrated for several years over FDR’s New Deal policies decided that Truman’s call for civil rights when it came to African Americans was the last straw and a large number of Southern Democrats left with many of them saying “Goodbye Harry” as they exited the convention.
The walk out was orchestrated by South Carolina Governor, Strom Thurmond and he along with the rest of the Southern Democrats went on to form a new political party called The State’s Rights Democratic Party with this group even being refered to as the Democratic Party on the ballot in several states with many of it’s members being called ‘Dixiecrats’.
The State’s Rights Democratic Party nominated Strom Thrumond as their nominee for president with the Governor of Mississppi, Fielding L. Wright as his running mate.
The Dixiecrats realize that they couldn’t win the election outright so there plan was to get enough electoral votes from Southern States in the hopes that neither Dewey or Truman would get the 266 electoral votes to win leading to Congress having to decide on the winner with the Dixiecrats preparing to throw their support behind the candidate who promises to keep segregation in the Southern states.
The Return of Henry Wallace & The Progressive Party
While the Dixiecrats are looking to deadlock the election with their splinter group, the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party are leaving in droves to support former Vice President, Henry A. Wallace who was kicked off the ticket in 1944 out of concern that Wallace would become the new president if FDR passed away as he supported ideas that frighten many establishment types in Washington, which lead to Harry Truman being his replacement on the ticket.
After Roosevelt’s death and Truman’s ascension to the oval office, Wallace became the president’s new Secretary of Commerce before eventually being fired by Truman from this position over disputes both men had regarding Truman’s foreign policy and how the House Un-American Activities Committee violated many civil liberties.
On January 5th 1948, Wallace announced that he would run for president as an independent and many of his supporters left the Democrats to create a new progressive party that centered around Henry Wallace similar to that of Theodore Roosevelt or Robert La Follette Sr.
At their nominating convention in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, the progressives nominated Wallace as their candidate and chose Glenn Taylor, who was a Senator from Idaho and one of the most liberal members of the U.S. Senate at the time as his running mate.
The Progressive Party had gained much attention due to the former vice president’s involvement but also thanks to the support of other political groups like the American Labor Party and celebrities like Ava Gardner, Arthur Miller, Katherine Hepburn and even famed civil rights activist, W.E.B. DuBois supported the cause.
Campaign Strategies
When the race finally got undeway, all four candidates used different strategies to get their messages across: the Dixiecrats ran on a platform that promises to maintain the South’s segregationist policies while the Progressive Party are making trips to the South, promoting racial intergration which leads to angry Southerners throwing rotten fruit, eggs and vegetables at them.
Wallace and the Progressives hope that the publicity from these trips will fire up liberals in the North to go out and vote, but his campaign soon falls apart as his party platform was seen as way too liberal for some in the U.S. and his connections with a Russian spritial guru and a few communists working within the party left Wallace in distance third or fourth place throughout the entire election.
Both Dewey and Truman are making numeorus trips around the U.S. via train cars and are using film reels shown in movie theaters to spark some enegry in their campaigns with Dewey playing it safe throughout, giving speeches that are filled with generic phrases, being vague on many policy issues, but as things roll on, Dewey decides to be more aggressive with his words when attacking the president but many higher ups within the GOP are telling him to stay the course and stick to the script as his lead was still way ahead of Truman’s according to the polls.
Harry Truman meanwhile is giving speeches saying how the 80th Congress and the Republicans in general were in the pockets of big business and that they were to blame for the boom/bust cycles that ultimately gave way to the Great Depression.
Before long, the crowd sizes for both Truman and Dewey’s rallies change drastically and it also helps in Truman’s case that the economy start to turn around with unemployment going 3.9% to 3.5% not to mention a massive reduction when it came federal spending yet despite all of this and Truman’s numbers getting much better, everyone from Washington to the media are heading into election day predicting a big victory for Republicans…But did that come to pass?
Election of 1948: The Results
On November the 2nd, 1948 the results were coming in and it becomes clear that Harry Truman emerged victorious to remain the 33rd president in U.S. History.
Truman won 28 states and received 303 electoral votes and 49.6% of the popular vote, making him the first president since Calvin Coolidge in 1924 to win re-election after becoming president through the death of his predecessor.
Thomas Dewey reportedly went to sleep at the Roosevelt Hotel waiting for the confirmation that his become the new president… instead, he wakes up to discover that his lost the election with him racking up 16 states, 189 electoral votes and 45.1% of the popular vote.
After the results of the election were made clear, Harry Truman got his hands on one of the Chicago Tribune newspapers that had the infamous headline ‘DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN’ and when the time came for the president to take photos following the race, he proudly held up the newspaper with a big smile on his face.
The Dixiecrats deadlock strategy failed as their candidate, Strom Thurmond came in third with 39 electoral votes (which were the states of South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and an electoral vote in Tennessee) and 2.4% of the popular vote which was the lowest popular vote perentage for a third party that got electoral votes.
The Progressive Party were in even worse shape following the results of this election as Henry Wallace came in fourth place with no electoral votes but got 2.4% of the popular which was 19,000 votes less than Thurmond and it also was the last time a candidate ran with the progressive party in a presidential election.
This election marked the first time since 1836 in which a Democratic candidate won an election without the state of South Carolina, and it’s also the first time a Democrat didn’t win the states of Mississippi, Louisianaand Alabama. It’s also worth noting that this was last time the Democrats won a presidential election without the states of Maryland, Pennyslvania, New York and Delaware…all of which would become soildly blue states in the next century.
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