1948 United States presidential election

The 1948 United States presidential election happened on November 2, 1948. This election was between Harry S. Truman (president at that time) and Thomas E. Dewey (the Governor of New York). Truman won by 303 electoral votes. Dewey got 189 electoral votes. Thurmond got 39 electoral votes including a faithless elector in Tennessee.

1948 United States presidential election

November 2, 1948
All 531 electoral votes of the Electoral College 266 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	53.0% 2.9 pp
Nominee Harry S. Truman Thomas E. Dewey Strom Thurmond Party Democratic Republican Dixiecrat Home state Missouri New York South Carolina Running mate Alben W. Barkley Earl Warren Fielding L. Wright Electoral vote 303 189 39 States carried 28 16 4 Popular vote 24,179,347 21,991,292 1,175,930 Percentage 49.6% 45.1% 2.4%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Truman/Barkley; Red denotes those won by Dewey/Warren; Orange denotes those won by Thurmond/Wright (including a faithless elector in Tennessee). Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election Harry S. Truman Democratic Elected President Harry S. Truman Democratic

This election is best known as an upset because of the election results. Predictions showed that Dewey would beat Truman at the polls. For example, a newspaper in Chicago printed an issue in advance which said that Dewey had won the election. However, Truman won the election instead.

Republican Party

Republican candidates:

• Thomas E. Dewey, Governor of New York
• Robert Taft, Senator from Ohio
• Harold Stassen, former governor of Minnesota
• Arthur H. Vandenberg, President pro tempore of the senate from Michigan
• Earl Warren, governor of California
• Douglas MacArthur, General of the Army from New York

Candidates gallery

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  President Harry S. Truman

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  Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia

Democratic Party

Democratic candidates:

• Harry S. Truman, President of the United States from Missouri
• Richard Brevard Russell, U.S. senator from Georgia

1948 United States Presidential Election Media

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  Democratic Party (United States)

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  Harry S. Truman, President of the USA in 1945.

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  Portrait of Vice-President Alben Barkley

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  Republican Party (United States)

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  Henry Agard Wallace, 1888–1965, bust portrait, facing left

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  Glen H. Taylor

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  Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina

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  GOVERNOR FIELDING L. WRIGHT, States' Rights Candidate for VICE-PRESIDENT of the United States, 1948

Other websites

• 1948 popular vote by counties
• 1948 State-by-state Popular vote Archived 2008-12-01 at the Wayback Machine
• How close was the 1948 election? Archived 2012-08-25 at the Wayback Machine – Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Booknotes interview with Zachary Karabell on The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election, June 4, 2000.