United States elections, 1948

The 1948 United States general election was held on November 2, 1948. The election took place during the beginning stages of the Cold War. Democrat Harry S. Truman was elected to a full term as president, overcoming both the candidacies of Republican Thomas E. Dewey and two erstwhile Democrats. The Republicans, who had just won both the House and the Senate two years earlier, ceded control of both chambers of Congress to the Democrats. Puerto Rico also elected Luis Muñoz Marín of the Popular Democratic Party as its first democratically-elected governor.

President

In what is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history, Harry S. Truman defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Going into Election Day, virtually every prediction (with or without public opinion polls) indicated that Truman would lose. Truman took most states outside of the Northeast and Deep South, and won the popular vote by four points. Dewey won his party's nomination for the second straight election, defeating Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen on the Republican convention's second ballot. Truman won the Democratic nomination on the first ballot, but the party's platform on civil rights caused a third party run by Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. Thurmond took four states in the Deep South. Former Democratic vice president Henry A. Wallace ran as the Progressive nominee, but took only two percent of the popular vote.

United States House of Representatives

As in the Senate, Truman's "obstructionist" message gave the Democrats a net gain of 75 seats in the House, giving them control of the chamber.

United States Senate

The Democrats gained nine seats in the Senate, enough to give them control of the chamber over the Republicans. Truman had campaigned against an "obstructionist" Congress that had blocked many of his initiatives, and in addition the U.S. economy recovered from the postwar recession of 1946-1947 by election day.

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