Election+of+1948

1. **Date of the Election:** November 2nd, 1948

2. **President at the Time of the Election:** Harry S. Truman he was the incumbent due to FDR's death.

3. **Events in the Past Four Years:** In 1945, FDR died after being elected for his forth term in office which forced Truman to replace him. In 1945, the Americans dropped the first Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrior and became the first black baseball player in MLB. The Second World War was ended during this time period as well.

4. **Candidates for Each Party:** Democratic Party Represintative- Harry S. Truman Republican Party Representative- Thomas E. Dewey Dixiecrat Party Representative- Strom Thurmond

5. **Conventions of Each Party:** The republican convention was held in Philedelphia, it was the first party to be on national tv. Deweys competitors for the republicans met in one of their hotel rooms to try and find a way to stop Dewey. Taft who was in second place called Stassen to try an get him to drop out of the election. Dewey won and choose Governor Earl Warren who was later a chief justice as his running mate. There goals were reduction of public debt, federal aid to slum clearance and low housing costs, extension of social security benefits, federal anti lynching law, federal civil rights legislation, abolition of poll tax, crackdown on domestic communism, and recognition of Israel and international arms control "on basis of reliable disciplines against bad faiths."


 * ~ Ballot ||~ 1 ||~ 2 ||~ 3 ||
 * ~ NY Governor [|Thomas E. Dewey] ||~ 434 ||~ 515 ||~ 1094 ||
 * ~ OH Senator [|Robert Taft] ||~ 224 ||~ 274 ||~ 0 ||
 * ~ Frm. MN Governor [|Harold Stassen] ||~ 157 ||~ 149 ||~ 0 ||
 * ~ MI Senator and President pro tem [|Arthur Vandenberg] ||~ 62 ||~ 62 ||~ 0 ||
 * ~ CA Governor [|Earl Warren] ||~ 59 ||~ 57 ||~ 0 ||
 * ~ House Speaker [|Joseph Martin] ||~ 18 ||~ 10 ||~ 0 ||
 * ~ General [|Douglas MacArthur] ||~ 11 ||~ 7 ||~ 0 ||
 * ~ Others ||~ 127 ||~ 20 ||~ 0 ||

The Democratic Convention nominated Harry S. Truman. Truman was failing greatly and democratic bosses where trying to overthrow him and get a more popular candidate to run. The democrats were in a huge whole because Truman had little control over the south, they hoped course would change but in 1947 he vetoed the Taft- Hartley law which preserved Union power. Truman's appointment of a liberal civil rights commission convinced Southern conservatives that to reestablish their voice they had to threaten third party action, that is threaten to defeat Truman in 1948. At the Convention, a group of Northern liberals, led by Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey successfully pushed through a platform – over vigorous Southern opposition – that promoted civil rights for blacks. In his speech promoting the civil rights platform, Humphrey memorably stated that "the time has come for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights! This helped them tremendously in the South. Both candidates agreed on most of the same stuff, like, The Marshall Plan, and the Truman Doctrine to help Greece and Turkey in war. The democrats wanted over vigorous Southern opposition – that promoted c ivil rights for blacks. In his speech promoting the civil rights platform. They mainly wanted a few of the same things that the Republicans wanted but opposed slavery very much so, this led to the creation of the Dixiecrat Party.


 * ~ Presidential Balloting, DNC 1948 ||
 * ~ Contender ||~ Vote ||
 * ~ President [|Harry S. Truman] ||~ 947.5 (74.81%) ||
 * ~ Senator [|Richard Russell, Jr.] ||~ 266 (21.00%) ||
 * ~ [|James A. Roe] ||~ 15 (1.18%) ||
 * ~ [|Paul V. McNutt] ||~ 2 (0.16%) ||
 * ~ [|Alben W. Barkley] ||~ 1 (0.07%) ||
 * ~ Not Voting ||~ 35 (2.76%) ||

The Dixiecrat party did anything and everything that they could so Truman would not become the President. Their main goal was continuing the policy of racial segregation in the South and the Jim Crow laws that sustained it. They elected South Carolina’s Storm Thurmond, they knew that they had no chance of winning because they could not appear on enough state ballots. Their strategy was to take enough Southern States from Truman to force the election into the House of Representatives, where they could then extract concessions from either Truman or Dewey on racial issues in exchange for their support. Even if Dewey won, it would show Democrats that they need southern support in order to win more presidential elections. This would also weaken the pro-civil rights movement, but the party was weakened when Southern Democratic leaders refused to support the party. They reached one goal; Truman was not placed on the ballot in Alabama.

6. **Major Issues Focused Upon: T**hree parties are running. The Democrats had been in power for the past 16 years but in this election, the Republicans looked unbeatable. Dewey, tried to avoid talking about the major issues during his campaign, But Truman, did the exact opposite. Truman gave hundreds of speeches talking about the major issues saying "do nothing- good for nothing." Truman summoned a special session of Congress in July, 1948, proclaiming that he was offering the legislators an opportunity to enact some of the liberal planks they had proposed in the Republican platform. The results were meager, reinforcing the allegation that Congress did nothing. As Dewey avoided, resting on his reputation as the favorite to win, Truman made one of the greatest upsets in American History considered by almost every single historian. As for the Dixiecrats, they opposed of Truman desegregating the army, opposed racial intervention and wanted to retain the Jim Crow Laws and White Supremacy in the face of possible federal intervention. All Dixiecrats wanted to interfere with State and Federal Rights.

7.**Overall Results:**The Democratic party won a 93 seat majority in the House and a 12 seat lead in the Senate. This was a huge moment in American History, it was the first election during the Cold War, their were three conventions with three running mates, it was the greatest upset in sports/political/anything in American History. It was also the first ever election that was televised, this election offset the next 20 elections to this day. Truman's years as president were not as spectacular as his comeback election, but he did face of with the Soviets extremely well. Truman had to have foreign policies as good as our founding fathers had, he detonated the first atomic bomb. He had to deal with the Cold war and the beginning of Communism, the Korean War, Steel and Coal strikes. With all the protection we needed, Truman called for tripling the defense budget, and the globalization and militarization of containment policy whereby the U.S. and its NATO allies would respond militarily to actual Soviet expansion. US troops stabilized Korea and won. The 22nd amendment was ratified limiting a presidency to only two terms. Their was a huge issue with the media and pollers, before the election there had already been newspapers stating "Dewey defeats Truman" and the electorate pollers had already stated that they will vote for Dewey. This was a stepping stone to the way the media is now.
 * ~ Electoral vote ||= **303** ||= 189 ||= 39 ||
 * ~ States carried ||= **28** ||= 16 ||= 4 ||
 * ~ Popular vote ||= 24,179,347 ||= 21,991,292 ||= 1,175,930 ||
 * Truman Dewey Thurmond**



[] [] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/166817/Dixiecrat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixiecrat [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman#Presidency_1945.E2.80.931953] []
 * Work Cited-**
 * Fake Book-**