Socialists Nominate A. Philip Randolph, Not Norman Thomas, in 1948

"As the 1948 election approached, Norman Thomas was reluctant to once more take up his party's standard....Thomas appealed to A. Philip Randolph to accept the quadrennial honor, but Randolph's first loyalty was to his union and the struggle for civil rights..." https://books.google.com/books?id=MnflBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA436

Suppose Randolph was willing to accept the Socialist presidential nomination. Considering that Truman won Ohio by only 7,107 votes, California by 17,865, and Illinois by 33,612 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1948 could Randolph have diverted enough African American votes from Truman to make a difference? (One problem: the Socialists were apparently not even on the ballot in Ohio. But California and Illinois would be enough to deny Truman an Electoral College majority...) Remember that in nominating Randolph, the Socialists would have gone further than the Communists had up to that time--they had only nominated an African American (James W. Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Ford in 1932, 1936, and 1940) for *vice* president. And whereas Ford had no special standing in the African American community beyond Communists, Randolph was a very well-known civil rights and labor leader. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Philip_Randolph
 
Given how much of a priority he gave to Civil Rights, would he even be willing to run and split the Progressive Party vote? As I understand it Thomas ran because he wanted to offer a progressive alternative to leftists that didn't have the association of Communist sympathies that Wallace had (whether justified or not). Would it be possible that he accepts the nomination on thee grounds that they will pull out of the race and support Wallace?
 
Given how much of a priority he gave to Civil Rights, would he even be willing to run and split the Progressive Party vote? As I understand it Thomas ran because he wanted to offer a progressive alternative to leftists that didn't have the association of Communist sympathies that Wallace had (whether justified or not). Would it be possible that he accepts the nomination on thee grounds that they will pull out of the race and support Wallace?

No, neither Thomas nor Randolph had any use for Wallace. (In Thomas's case, it wasn't just concern about the role of Communists and pro-Communists in Wallace's campaign; he remembered how Wallace had given no assistance to Thomas's efforts to help southern tenant farmers in the 1930's.) Randolph had worked with Communists in the National Negro Congress in the 1930's, but quit when the Congress took a pro-Hitler-Stalin-Pact line after 1939. Randolph would definitely *want* to take African American votes away from Wallace. As for taking them away from Truman, he would not much care. As he said in endorsing Thomas, "'I cannot say there is any fundamental difference between President Truman and Governor Dewey, they have the same basic foreign and domestic policy." https://books.google.com/books?id=fud1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PR149 IMO the real obstacle to a Randolph candidacy was his commitment to his union; he specifically gave that as his reason for declining the SP's vice-presidential nomination in 1944.

Randolph in fact had been one of the leaders of a movement in 1946 that is almost forgotten today: the movement to create an *anti-Communist* farmer-labor party to the left of the Democrats. (This was quite distinct from, and hostile to, the emerging Communist-backed Wallace movement.) The leaders of the movement looked to the Canadian Cooperative Commonwealth Federation as a model. If the movement ever had any chance of getting anywhere, it was probably killed by Truman's veto of Taft-Hartley, which pretty much solidified labor support for Truman (except for the pro-Soviet left wing of the CIO, which of course backed Wallace).
 
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if Phil Randolph runs on an AND BOTH form of Socialism.

BOTH more good jobs AND a social safety net.

BOTH policies which work right now AND pie in the sky.

may have changed history of Democratic Party if the whole theory that once a third party approaches 5% the majority party will contend for the votes. heck, may have possibly changed history of Republican Party.

That is, if Phil runs dream campaign as FDR experimentalist open to socialism. And things keep rolling.
 
To be honest, there is probably no impact on the election. The Socialists were a minor party and only appealed to a small group. The issues that had lead them to a sizable popular vote earlier in the century had been coopted by both the Democrats and even Republicans. The people who voted for Wallace were useful idiots and fellow travelers, and they aren't going to vote for an anti-communist of any stripe. Anti-Communist Democrats are still going to vote for Truman.

The most that is going to happen is that decades later the 1948 election will be even more prominent in historical reminiscences and documentaries because today's population would be more intrigued with a black Presidential candidate of a "major" party. But that won't be anything more than a footnote for several decades after 1948 although members of the American black community might be affected and influence them in the coming years especially as Randolph historically influenced the civil rights movement. That might cement his name better in the popular memory.
 
To be honest, there is probably no impact on the election. The Socialists were a minor party and only appealed to a small group.

The votes a small group gets can be important in a close election, and the key states of California, Ohio, and Illinois were very close in 1948. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1948.txt (Winning all three would give Dewey the election; even winning two of them would send the race into the House.)
 
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