AET: 1944 w/ Axis Win

General idea here -- assuming PoDs following the election of FDR to his third term, how would the Presidential Election of 1944 play out if Nazi Germany and/or Imperial Japan either had effectively won or were winning their respective wars?

Now, I realize full well that further details of our Axis Win are most probably relevant here; but I further realize that the actual plausibility of any given Axis Win scenario is going to be contested. So the only stipulation I'll add for now, if it may be so permitted -- and if the situation described stretches plausibility too much to be considered, feel free to disregard it, and if possible, answer the question as such.
Pearl Harbor (and initiation of the Southern Strategy) is either delayed or prevented, and the U.S. is not at war with Germany by election year. As to the PoD, I'm partial toward Barbarossa -- in a nutshell, Stalin kills himself, and the Soviets break and are defeated; Britain is either fighting on alone, or has agreed to peace as well, bringing the war in Europe to an end with Nazi Victory.
As usual with AETs -- first, how would the Republican (and Democratic ?) primaries play out? The conventions? Then, given these two nominees (and their running mates), how does the general election play out?
 
If the United States stayed out of World War II, then I doubt FDR would run for a fourth term. His health was failing in 1944, he wouldn't have the excuse of an ongoing war that America was actively fighting to justify remaining in office, and he would face even more opposition if he tried to run for a fourth term in peacetime than he did when he sought a third term in 1940. That said, I don't know who the Democrats would nominate in this scenario. Henry Wallace would be too liberal and too weird. Cordell Hull would be too old. James F. Byrnes would be too conservative. Harry Truman may not have gained as much attention if he didn't get to investigate wartime production (if FDR won by a closer margin in 1940, then his shorter coattails might've resulted in Truman losing reelection; he narrowly won reelection in OTL 1940). Alben Barkley seems like the most likely Democratic nominee, being a supporter of the New Deal and a Southerner who was a moderate on racial issues. His running mate would be a liberal from a Northern state.

For the Republicans, I think Thomas Dewey would still be favored for the nomination. But Wendell Willkie could vie with Dewey for the party's moderates. With the U.S. out of WWII, Willkie might not work alongside FDR on war-related activities, and thus he would retain a positive image with many of his fellow Republicans. Robert Taft would probably seek the GOP nomination if the U.S. sat out the war. But I don't think Taft would stand a good chance of securing the nomination given his isolationism, since the Axis victories in Europe and Asia would suggest to the public that America needed a more interventionist foreign policy to combat Axis aggression. If Dewey or Willkie is the GOP nominee, then his running mate would be a conservative from the Midwest for ideological and geographic balance, like John Bricker (Dewey's OTL 1944 running mate). If Taft is somehow the nominee, then his running mate could be a liberal or moderate (like Harold Stassen), although I could see him picking a fellow conservative.

The winner of the general election in 1944 will depend on the nominees on both sides, and perhaps the nature of the Axis victories overseas. Democrats might be favored to win because of the lingering effects of the Great Depression, and some voters would remain reluctant to send a Republican back to the White House. If the Democratic nominee is too liberal or too conservative for the general public, however, then the Republicans would probably win the presidency, especially with Dewey or Willkie as the nominee.
 
@TwisterAce Great answer! Thinking about it more, I do wonder if 1944 ends up being a "peacetime" election between a racial "moderate" like Barkley and a Republican "liberal" like Dewey or Wilkie, if TTL ends up with an earlier *Dixiecrat* third party candidate like OTL got four years later under similar circumstances?
 
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