WI: Dewey DID defeat Truman?

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Any student of history should be familiar with this photo of President Harry Truman, successor of the great FDR, smirking while holding a newspaper declaring that he'd lost to his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, in the 1948 election. Of course this turned out to be far from true, and Truman swept the Electoral College in a 303-189 victory, also winning the popular vote by a decent margin.

With that having been said, this is one election with which i'm not terribly familiar. I haven't studied it much in depth, so while i'm sure it's been covered before, I'd like to ask; what if Dewey had somehow defeated President Truman? What big changes come for American history with President Dewey in office from 1949 to 1953? Is he likely to win reelection in 1952? And what, if anything, changes about the Democratic Party following the loss? Does Dewey begin the work of peeling back FDR's many social/economic programs created in the wake of the Great Depression, or, as a moderate-to-liberal NY Republican, is he likely to leave them be, or even expand them?
 
There's an interesting forecast of the presumed new administration's policies ("What Dewey Will Do") from the November 1948 Kiplinger's Magazine: https://books.google.com/books?id=3wUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10 No great surprises. John Foster Dulles will be the key man on foreign policy. More aid to China (when this was written, few Americans realized how soon Chiang Kai-shek would be routed; in retrospect, we can see that by the time Dewey was inaugurated China would be past "saving" except by a massive injection of US troops which would be politically impossible). No tax cuts, and maybe even some increases--Dewey believed in a balanced budget, and felt that defense spending needed to be increased. Taft-Hartley will be kept with some mild pro-labor revisions. Union leaders will have to deal with the Department of Labor instead of getting special treatment at the White House. Dewey will advocate anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation but the article gives the impression he will not press for them very hard, lest they lead the South to oppose the rest of his program. The Communist Party will not be outlawed, but Communists will be removed from government. No theorists or professors for the Supreme Court, but seasoned practicing lawyers and judges. And so on...
 
or, as a moderate-to-liberal NY Republican, is he likely to leave them be, or even expand them?

This. Dewey's domestic policies would more or less be similar to Eisenhower's. The main difference would be in civil rights. Dewey was an ardent opponent of segregation while NY Governor, so he is more likely to give Brown v Board his public support. (That decision would still rule against segregation without Warren on the Court, although the decision might not be unanimous). Further, while Truman is given credit for desegregating the armed forces it was actually Eisenhower who enforced the executive order which as resisted under Truman. So desegregation in the military would be enforced 4 years early.
 
A key point: Dewey will not appoint Vice President Warren to the Supreme Court, of course, but he will name two Justices in 1949 (assuming Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge both die, as OTL). These nominations will have to be approved by a Democrat-majority Senate. That should not be a serious problem, as Dewey would be very unlikely to nominate anyone so controversial as to provoke a bloc rejection by the Democrats, or indeed any serious deviation from the tradition of near-total deference to Presidential choices. (It should also be noted that SCotUS picks were much less contentious in that era: in 1945, Truman appointed Republican Senator Harold Burton to the Court; Burton was unanimously approved the day after Truman nominated him.)

Truman's 1949 appointments, Clark and Minton, served until 1967 and 1956.

As to Congress: suppose the PoD is that some Republican leadership figure, Frobble, objects to Dewey's play-it-cool strategy, and insists that Republicans make an all-out get-out-the-vote effort. When somebody objects that this might stir up additional Democrats to vote, Frobble says "We outnumber them - if you don't believe that, then you're arguing that we are trying to sneak into the Presidency against the majority of Americans." The RNC and Dewey's campaign managers agree, and launch that GOtV effort.

My analysis strongly suggests that the 1948 popular vote was about 7.5M below the historical trend line, as indicated by the 1932, 1936, 1940, 1952, 1956, and 1960 results. Suppose this deficiency was largely due, as many have thought, to complacent Republicans staying home because "the election was in the bag". Some of it was despairing Democrats staying home, but AIUI, the Democrats did push GOtV, minimizing that effect.

So the GOP GOtV turns out an additional 7M votes, all across the country. That's enough to give Dewey a solid popular vote victory (28M to 24M) and to flip 16 states with 167 electoral votes, for a 356-136-39 victory. It will also have downticket effects. A quick survey suggests that it would flip about 50 House seats, which would continue Republican control. But it would only flip five Senate seats, so the Democrats would still gain control there. (This would be the first election to produce a Republican House and Democrat Senate. OTL, that didn't happen until 2010.)

Thus Dewey would have to govern with that constraint.
 
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But it would only flip five Senate seats, so the Democrats would still gain control there. (This would be the first election to produce a Republican House and Democrat Senate. OTL, that didn't happen until 2010.)

Thus Dewey would have to govern with that constraint.

That actually might be better for Dewey, since he wouldn't have his arch nemesis Robert Taft in the Senate Majority.
 
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