Taft vs. Stevenson in 1952 - who wins, and why?

Who would win in a head-to-head match-up in 1952

  • Taft

    Votes: 32 47.8%
  • Stevenson

    Votes: 35 52.2%

  • Total voters
    67
Taft, but very, very narrowly. Truman's approval ratings in '52 were worse than they were in '48 when he pulled his upset against Dewey and they were also worse than Dubya's in 2008, and to top that off, the Democrats had the White House for 20 years at that point (and controlled congress for all but two of those years). The slowing economy and Korea would probably also give Taft the edge.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
A plausible argument, interesting that I see more votes for Stevenson in the poll. I guess we have some "shy" Stevenson advocates here.
 
Stevenson wins. Remember, contrary to popular belief, most Americans in the 50s were Democrats who loved FDR's New Deal and wanted more. The only reason Eisenhower won was because he was personally popular to such an extent that he basically transcended politics. Being relatively non-partisan himself assuredly helped. Taft is no Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson was a very good politician. Adlai takes it. Of course, if Eisenhower explicitly endorses Taft, or Stevenson for that matter...That could change things considerably.
 
Stevenson wins. Remember, contrary to popular belief, most Americans in the 50s were Democrats who loved FDR's New Deal and wanted more. The only reason Eisenhower won was because he was personally popular to such an extent that he basically transcended politics. Being relatively non-partisan himself assuredly helped. Taft is no Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson was a very good politician. Adlai takes it. Of course, if Eisenhower explicitly endorses Taft, or Stevenson for that matter...That could change things considerably.

This, + the fact that Taft was at the time know as an isolationist (just when NATO and the like had been born among a general national conscensus) and a once-stern opponent of the New Deal. While dw93 points will make it closer then it would be otherwise the fact remain that the man was unnaceptable for a majority of the electorate.
 
Wonder the effect on the Republicans ITTL. A hard-right conservative has lost, and maybe the Republicans would still turn towards Eisenhowerian moderation?
 

bguy

Donor
Wonder the effect on the Republicans ITTL. A hard-right conservative has lost, and maybe the Republicans would still turn towards Eisenhowerian moderation?

Taft wasn't hard-right. He supported federal aid for education, health care and public housing.
 
One fact that I like to trot out is that since the passage of the 25th Amendment, the White House has changed hands exactly every eight years, almost like clockwork. The exceptions are the Democratic failure to retain the White House in 1980, after four years, and their failure to take it back in 1988, after eight years of Republican control. Of course, a lot of the transitional elections were close, with the Administration party winning the popular and losing the electoral vote in two or three of these elections.

Curiously, this pattern doesn't exist before the 25th Amendment.

And in any case the Administration party sees its popular vote margin drop compared to four year earlier, just about all the time. The only clear exception is 1904.

So the presumption is that this is the Republicans' race to lose, unless there is a good reason otherwise, and unless there is a really good reason otherwise, if Stevenson win it will be a lower margin than Truman's 4.48% margin from 1948. And the Republicans did gain control of both house of Congress in 1952, indicating it was as much of a GOP victory as an Eisenhower victory.

My suspicion is that Stevenson wins the popular vote and Taft wins the electoral vote and gets elected.
 
If you average Dewey's 45.07% of the national popular vote in 1948, and Ike's 55.18% in 1952, you get 50.12%. Actually I think that this is pretty much what Taft would have gotten, though he would have done a little worse, probably 49.12%.

I did a simple exercise with this. I opened up the 1948 and 1952 presidential election pages on Wikipedia, and did a state-by-state comparison of Dewey's popular vote percentage in 1948, with Eisenhower's in 1952.

I then averaged the Dewey and Ike percentages, and subtracted 1%, to get Taft's popular vote percentage. This would give him a nationwide popular vote percentage of 49.1%, which seems about right, with Stevenson beating him in the nationwide popular vote and maybe even getting a popular vote majority, depending on how many votes leak to the fringe candidates.

Doing this exercise, Stevenson starts with the states he carried in IOTL 1952, giving him 89 electoral votes. All these states except for arguably Kentucky and West Virginia are in the South:

Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
North Carolina
South Carolina
West Virginia

Stevenson carries these states plus the southern and border states of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia. Note that Dewey carried the border states of Maryland and Delaware in 1948. The additional six southern and border states give Stevenson another 85 electoral votes, for a total of 164.

Stevenson also carries Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Washington. These four states give him another 40 electoral votes, for a total of 204.

Now it gets interesting, since it turns out that the Dewey states of New York and Pennsylvania are really close. The average of the Dewey and Eisenhower percentages are 50.73% for New York and 51.44% for Pennsylvania. Subtracting a percentage point for Taft, that gives 49.7% or so for New York and 50.4% for Pennsylvania. If Stevenson carries both states, he wins, with 281 electoral votes. Utah gives another 4 and is the only Dewey state that would even be close under this methodology, though not as close as Pennsylvania.

But I think in this hypothetical election, Taft manages to carry Pennsylvania, though not New York, and win in the electoral college.

You can do this the other way, starting with the Dewey states, Taft picks up another dozen Truman states in the West and Midwest and wins, though he has to hold Pennsylvania of course.
 
Of course, whoever Taft's vice presidential selection would be important. This is mainly because Taft died in 1953.

The logic would be to try to pick someone from the more liberal wing of the party, which would rule out Nixon, and I don't see a Taft-Nixon ticket surviving the scandal that nearly caused Eisenhower to drop Nixon from the ticket.
 
One thing I forgot is that Eisenhower was living in New York at the time of the election -he was President of Columbia University, and to the extent he had a home state, Pennsylvania was his home state. So I thing in a Taft-Stevenson race you can give Stevenson New York, and it comes down to Pennsylvania.

Taft would play less well in the Northeast than did Eisenhower, so conceivably Stevenson wouldn't need Pennsylvania if he could carry New Jersey, or a combination of Maryland and Connecticut. But of these states, all of which were Dewey states, only Maryland was close in 1952 IOTL.

Taft really needs an internationalist running mate from the Northeast, ideally from Pennsylvania or New Jersey. As internationalists, Earl Warren and Harold Stassen are candidates for running mates for Taft. Stassen might help if he could carry Minnesota for Taft (note that the Dewey-Warren ticket lost California), though Minnesota doesn't make up for the loss of Pennsylvania. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. would be out if he made similar criticisms of Taft that he made IOTL. I'm assuming Eisenhower isn't interested in electoral politics at all in this scenario.

If the vice presidential nominee comes from Pennsylvania, checking Wikipedia, Senator James H. Duff seems to be the likeliest candidate, though at the age of seventy he may be too old. Governor Alfred Driscoll of New Jersey would be likelier. Another possibility would have been former Speaker of the House Joseph Martin, though he was almost seventy himself. I think the likeliest Taft running mates would be Driscoll, Martin, and Stassen, in that order.
 
For fun, I did a run-through on the Campaign Trail in the 1948 scenario using a Dewey -Bricker ticket. It was the closest I could come to what a Taft run would be like, though Dewey being the head of the ticket is a problem here. I took a fairly liberal line on domestic issues but endorsed the isolationist position on foreign policy whenever it came up, though allowing that some foreign aid, properly managed, was OK.

Well here is the result:

https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/campaign-trail/game/400033

Not a good sign for an isolationist campaign.

I can still see a path to victory for Taft with this result, and this is with writing off New York (1% margin for the Democrats in this outcome). He would carry the mountain states (but not Arizona or New Mexico), where the Republicans did very well in 1952, plus Wisconsin, Delaware, Connecticut, and California. California in this scenario had the largest margin for the Democrats, at 3%. Also, the scenario outcome had Truman beating "isolationist Dewey" by 4.6% in the national popular vote, better than his OTL result, in 1952 I don't think Stevenson could have managed that margin against Taft.
 

bguy

Donor
Stevenson carries these states plus the southern and border states of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia.

Taft wanted Harry Byrd to be Secretary of the Treasury. If Byrd actually wants the job then the Byrd Machine should be influential enough to swing Virginia to Taft.

I would also expect Taft to carry Texas. His support of the Submerged Lands Act which gives Texas control over the submerged oil deposits off their coast out to the three mile line will play very well in the state and will likely be enough to win Taft the endorsement of Texas Governor Allan Shivers. (IOTL Shivers endorsed Eisenhower because of Ike coming around in favor of the Submerged Lands Act, so he will presumably likewise endorse Taft.) Taft's record on labor unions, his opposition to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and his pledge to put a southern Democrat in his Cabinet will also make Taft popular in Texas.

Taft also had a lot of support from the oil producers in Oklahoma which probably gives him a pretty good shot at carrying that state as well.

I think the likeliest Taft running mates would be Driscoll, Martin, and Stassen, in that order.

The James Patterson biography on Taft, "Mr. Republican" suggests that Taft planned to go with Senator William Knowland from California. Certainly Knowland possesses a lot of the same biographical factors that help Nixon get the veep slot IOTL with both men being young, World War 2 veterans from an important battleground state that the Republicans lost in the previous election. And Knowland has the added benefit that circa 1952 he would be a much less controversial figure than Nixon. And while Knowland is politically conservative, he was still a political ally of Earl Warren in 1952, so selecting Knowland would still be an olive branch of sorts from Taft to the moderate Republicans.
 
@Galba Otho Vitelius

The issue with your whole reasoning is that you're making Taft into a ''generic republican'' candidate. I don't think anyone would contest that a generic republican would have the edge but Taft wasn't. He was know for two things a) isolationism and b) having been a firm oponnent of the New Deal. Both interventionisme and New Deal type policies where as close as you get to a national conscensus at this point.

Granted, he did move to the center on economic matters latter in life but he still has a huge bagage in these issues democrats can use to go with ''its all an act, he still is as anti-new deal then before'' line of attacks and it would very probably have worked.

Hence, using Dewey as case test for a Taft candidacy just doesn't work as he had none of the very large weight the senator of Ohio would need to carry with him. The most apt comparaison would rather be the republican have a rather favourable if not perfect environment in an election year in the 60's but throwing it by nominating Goldwater. In fact, one could push the comparaison further: as Goldwater he would make gain in the South but loose more elsewhere.
 
I'm with phil03, though I think foreign policy issues are more heavily weighted than domestic issues. Taft looses this election if he's perceived as opposed to the strategy of international defense. First, he has to be willing to compromise, to support NATO and internationalism. Second, he has to convince people he's sincere and handle the fallout from reversing his long-held position. (Incidentally, this probably gets him booted from Profiles In Courage.)

It's an uphill battle, even with an electorate up for change. The feelings of the electorate would probably more likely be expressed by a resigned vote for Stevenson (as the responsible choice) in '52 and a Republican wave in congress in '54.
 
genusmap.php

Adlai Stevenson II (D-IL)/Richard Russel Jr. (D-GA)-347 EV (53,02%)
Robert Taft (R-OH)/William F. Knowland (R-CA)-184 (46,88%)
So, I have tought my take of Taft vs Stevenson a bit more through. Taft would perform relatively well in midwest and reconquer most of the great plains as well as taking advantages of the divisions of the democrats in the south and the fact that he his far more palpable to many voters down there then the average republican to make some gains but the democrats, in part thanks to Russel. The looses they took in the south and elsewhere are gonna be more the upset by their gains in the west coast (Knowland wasn't enough to save Taft in CA) and in the populous and internationalist north east where the bitter fight with the Eisenhower had left Taft with very few true supporters in the region, Lodge in particular forgo the presidential campaign entirely to focus on Massachussets. Not that it did him the would be kingmaker much good as Stevenson victory there and the desertion of some local Taft supporter allowed Kennedy to pass like in OTL.
 
genusmap.php

Adlai Stevenson II (D-IL)/Richard Russel Jr. (D-GA)-347 EV (53,02%)
Robert Taft (R-OH)/William F. Knowland (R-CA)-184 (46,88%)
So, I have tought my take of Taft vs Stevenson a bit more through. Taft would perform relatively well in midwest and reconquer most of the great plains as well as taking advantages of the divisions of the democrats in the south and the fact that he his far more palpable to many voters down there then the average republican to make some gains but the democrats, in part thanks to Russel. The looses they took in the south and elsewhere are gonna be more the upset by their gains in the west coast (Knowland wasn't enough to save Taft in CA) and in the populous and internationalist north east where the bitter fight with the Eisenhower had left Taft with very few true supporters in the region, Lodge in particular forgo the presidential campaign entirely to focus on Massachussets. Not that it did him the would be kingmaker much good as Stevenson victory there and the desertion of some local Taft supporter allowed Kennedy to pass like in OTL.


Wasn't Taft a moderate on civil rights? I'm aware we're already talking about the possibility of evolution on other positions, just wondering why he'd move backwards on that particular front?
 
Wasn't Taft a moderate on civil rights? I'm aware we're already talking about the possibility of evolution on other positions, just wondering why he'd move backwards on that particular front?

One of his promess was to put a southern democrats in his cabinet. That, the old links dating back from the days of the ''conservative coalition'' of FDR days between the southern democrats and the republicans, especially with republicans ala Taft, would allow him to take some measure of advantage of the divisions of the democratic party on the issue. Stevenson himself was fairly moderate on civil rights but he was Truman annointed witch could only make some in the south look at him with a measure of mistrust.
 
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