Was Truman the Only Democrat Who Could've Won in 1948?

1948 was one of the great upsets in US political history. Just about every poll predicted that Republican Tom Dewey would be elected, yet President Truman narrowly beat him. Historians have attributed this to the Republicans running a bland, passive campaign as a result of their overconfidence in victory, and Truman's no-holds-barred whistle stop campaign that savaged the GOP on the stump. Further, major polling agencies actually stopped polling voters in the weeks and months the before the election, meaning that polling data at the time of the election was faulty. Many voters switched from Dewey to Truman in the final two weeks of the campaign. Since polling agencies hadn't detected this, Dewey still had a large lead over Truman on election day according to inaccurate data.

It's clear that the Republicans ran a weak campaign, while Truman and the Democrats ran a very strong one. Not only was Truman a forceful campaigner, he was able to portray himself as the man in the middle between the extremist factions of the Democratic Party and the "do nothing" Republicans. Could any other Democrat have won in 1948? Suppose that FDR had chosen either Henry Wallace or Bill Douglas, his friend and personal preference, to be his running mate in 1944. Could either one have won in 1948?
 
Douglas had strong anti-segregationist views, and his judicial record shows that he tended to have an independent streak, and valued his own emotional commitments in making decisions. He was seen as the perfect way to lose the south in '44; whether or not you believe that Committee Chairman Robert Hannegan sabotaged the effort to reach out to Douglas, the fact remains that he would have been a dicey choice as a VP.

I'm also not sure that he could've won in '48. Could he have won the nomination? Possible, though personally I don't see it. Douglas could be charismatic and a bold leader--when he tried. But, he also could be abrasive, toxic, pithy, and self-absorbed. He was very much his own man. That might help in the primary against Truman, but in the general, Douglas could come off as unstable or unresponsive to the Democratic Party's higher-ups. You have to remember, this is back when the parties exercised even more autocratic control of the presidential nominees than they do now. The party wanted to keep the Roosevelt Coalition together, but Douglas' anti-segregationist views could've sparked a States' Rights splintering, or at least dump votes to Dewey.

Overall, Douglas is a mixed bag. Even if Roosevelt chose him for '44, and Douglas agreed to be chosen, I have a hard time believing that he could've beaten Dewey. He was simply too much of a risk for the Democratic Party to tolerate.

I don't know as much about Henry Wallace, though.
 
Overall, Douglas is a mixed bag. Even if Roosevelt chose him for '44, and Douglas agreed to be chosen, I have a hard time believing that he could've beaten Dewey. He was simply too much of a risk for the Democratic Party to tolerate.

Interestingly, Dewey and Douglas were friends who were classmates at Columbia. They even wanted to start a law firm together, but Dewey wanted the name to be "Douglas & Dewey," while Douglas wanted the name to be "Dewey & Douglas." Ultimately each man's respect for the other made the firm impossible. So had they run against each other in 1948, both sides might end up running a very quiet and civil campaign unlike OTL.
 
FWIW, Truman actually trailed the Democratic ticket. In some key states he may have been helped by "reverse coattails"--the strong showing of Democrats for the Senate or Governorships. In Illinois, for example, Adlai Stevenson was easily elected Governor and Paul Douglas Senator while Truman only carried the state very narrowly. This makes me skeptical of the notion that it was Truman's campaign that was the key to the Democrats' 1948 victory.

All the same, there is a case to be made that Truman's strong anti-Soviet stand in the Cold War, while it helped trigger the Wallace candidacy (which cost Truman New York) also helped him regain Catholic votes that had defected to Willkie in 1940 and especially Dewey in 1944. (Samuel Lubell argued that Truman even got some Coughlinite voters who supported Lemke in 1936!)
 
All the same, there is a case to be made that Truman's strong anti-Soviet stand in the Cold War, while it helped trigger the Wallace candidacy (which cost Truman New York) also helped him regain Catholic votes that had defected to Willkie in 1940 and especially Dewey in 1944. (Samuel Lubell argued that Truman even got some Coughlinite voters who supported Lemke in 1936!)

Okay, I've done some digging on Wallace. From what I've found, it seems like he managed to be even less acceptable to the Southern Democrats than Douglas. Worse, he was a fairly outspoken advocate of rapprochement with the Soviet Union at the dawn of the Cold War. Add to that religious views that were all over the map. Now, granted, it does seem like the '44 convention was basically a Truman-Wallace battle, but Truman had the support of the Party's movers and shakers--and, as I said in my previous post about Douglas, this was a time when the Party bigwigs wielded even more convention power than today. Truman had power and he (well, his supporters) knew how to organize; Wallace had popularity, but his '44 organization was inept.

Wallace in '48 was the Progressive candidate; he was way, way far out left. He even accepted support from the Communist Party of America (!), which any reasonable politician of the early Cold War should have recognized as a kiss of death. If he'd been veep for four years and was running on that in '48, could he have brought home the bacon? Maybe. But, I'm seeing in Wallace shades of the Douglas problem: too independent and opinionated in an era where the Dems were seeking to reign in control of their candidates. Even these conditions probably wouldn't have tempered Wallace's progressivism to a large degree. His progressive views and ability to talk big might have allowed him to outmatch Dewey, but the problem in '48 comes not from outside the Democratic Party, but within: from the South. Wallace's anti-segregationism makes Douglas look apathetic in comparison. Honestly, a Wallace nomination in '48 sounds like a great way to kickstart the States' Rights third party ahead of time.

I must confess that early Cold War American politics are not my greatest area of expertise. But, it seems to come down to this: Douglas was too independent and unpredictable, while Wallace was too progressive and left-wing. The Democratic Party didn't just want a popular candidate, they wanted a popular candidate that they could control. The were coming out of a decade of the reign of FDR, and they wanted to reassert their authority. Wallace and Douglas, for different (but oddly similar) reasons, wouldn't have given them that opportunity.
 
I'd actually say it is harder to find a Republican who could have won.

Yes Truman ran a great campaign and Dewey a poor one but the actual gap in votes was surprisingly wide. I think the memory of FDR and the New Deal coalition, though fading, was still strong enough to have carried the Democrats to a win unless they had a very poor candidate.
 
I'd actually say it is harder to find a Republican who could have won.

Yes Truman ran a great campaign and Dewey a poor one but the actual gap in votes was surprisingly wide. I think the memory of FDR and the New Deal coalition, though fading, was still strong enough to have carried the Democrats to a win unless they had a very poor candidate.

Well, Truman's margin of victory wasn't that wide. He beat Dewey by 3.5% in the popular vote. But the states that gave him the election, California, Ohio, and Illinois, all went to Truman by less than 1%. Had only a few thousand votes in each state gone to Dewey instead, he would've been elected.
 
Well, Truman's margin of victory wasn't that wide. He beat Dewey by 3.5% in the popular vote. But the states that gave him the election, California, Ohio, and Illinois, all went to Truman by less than 1%. Had only a few thousand votes in each state gone to Dewey instead, he would've been elected.

While that's true the overall popular vote size of Truman's victory suggest it was more that Truman underperformed in the states you mentioned and I'd consider him more likely to do better than worse.

I think 1948 was possibly winnable for the Republicans but in retrospect the terrain favoured the Democrats and would have no matter who was running.
 
While that's true the overall popular vote size of Truman's victory suggest it was more that Truman underperformed in the states you mentioned and I'd consider him more likely to do better than worse.

I think 1948 was possibly winnable for the Republicans but in retrospect the terrain favoured the Democrats and would have no matter who was running.

If Truman had gone with a progressive like Wallace, I could see him doing worse, not better. Anti-segregationism and sympathy with the Soviets would play terribly in the South, or in the Midwest for that matter. Truman-Wallace would be a schizophrenic ticket; one half of the ticket wants to get tough on the USSR, but the other wants rapproachment.
 
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I think 1948 was possibly winnable for the Republicans but in retrospect the terrain favoured the Democrats and would have no matter who was running.

The GOP should have recognized that although Truman was unpopular, as an incumbent President in office during a strong economy he did have a chance in 1948. Further, most voters still liked the New Deal and didn't like the Republican Congress. Dewey had wanted to run an aggressive campaign, and if he did he probably would've won. But the GOP was adamant that Truman's defeat was inevitable as long as Dewey kept quiet and avoided speaking out on the issues. So he sat on the sidelines and blew it. Even so, had Dewey been elected Congress would probably have switched to the Democrats anyway - making for an awkward situation in January 1949.
 
What about a President Marshall, had Truman died before the change in the succession law

Marshall wasn't a Democrat - or a Republican for that matter. He was a political independent who deliberately stayed away from politics. But if he became President in 1947, perhaps he'd consider it his duty to run in 1948, and he'd accept the nomination of the party most likely to nominate him (obviously, the Democrats). If nominated by the Democrats Marshall would definitely win. Dewey might not even run in 1948 if the Republicans are going up against Marshall.
 
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