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1948 - Truman vs. Dewey

Democrat Harry S Truman, who took over the presidency when Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, decides to seek election on his own. But Truman, whose popularity has suffered amid postwar inflation, severe shortages of consumer products and housing, and labor strife, is beset by divisions within his own party. Some liberal Democrats desert to revive the Progressive Party, and nominate former Vice President Henry Wallace for president. At the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, white southern Democrats — angered by a Truman platform plank that advocates civil rights for blacks — walk out of the national convention and form the States’ Rights Democratic Party, with Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as its nominee.

On the GOP side, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey bests Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen in the first presidential debate ever to be broadcast on radio, and goes on to win the nomination. In his acceptance speech, the well-financed Dewey promises: “I come to you unfettered by a single obligation or promise to any living person.”

Few people give Truman much of a chance in the election, and the incumbent president has a difficult time attracting campaign donors. Finance chairman Louis Johnson is often forced to cover day-to-day expenses out of his own pocket. Even so, the campaign frequently gets into jams for lack of cash. A radio network, for example, threatens to cancel a scheduled broadcast of Truman’s Labor Day speech without a $50,000 advance payment. At the last minute, Oklahoma Governor Roy Turner manages to raise the money for Truman and saves the broadcast. On several occasions, the Democrats’ inability to pay broadcasters for extra time results in Truman being cut off before the end of a speech, and at another point, Truman’s campaign train is temporarily stranded in Oklahoma because of money woes. Truman artfully spins his financial problems as a sign of virtue. “When people are anxious to give you a lot of money in a political campaign, you always have to ask yourself what the reason for it is,” he says. “People just don’t give money away for no reason.”

Ultimately, Johnson manages to raise $1.5 million for Truman. The campaign leans heavily on a small cadre of loyalists such as longtime Truman friend Tom Evans, the chairman of Crown Drug Company, who gives $3,000 of his own and raises another $100,000 in the Midwest. J. Carroll Cone, a vice president of Pan American Airways, contributes $3,000 and raises another $300,000. Truman also receives generous donations from supporters whom he has appointed to diplomatic posts, including Robert Butler, the ambassador to Australia and Cuba ($5,000); James Bruce, the ambassador to Argentina, and his wife ($4,000); and Laurence A. Steinhardt, the ambassador to Canada, and his daughter ($10,000).

In November, Truman — confounding pollsters and newspaper pundits — wins the popular vote over Dewey by 49.6 percent to 45.1 percent, with Thurmond and Wallace each getting 2.4 percent, and tallies 303 electoral votes over Dewey’s 189 and Thurmond’s 39.