![]() (The Tribune wasn’t the only one to mistakenly call the election for the New York governor in covering the returns, a leading radio announcer, H.V. ![]() So they reported that he had done just that. Even though not all the votes had been tallied at the time of the Tribune’s deadline, editors were confident in the multiple polls widely favoring Dewey to win. On Election Day, the newspaper had been required to go to press earlier than usual due to a printers’ strike. Holding the paper, which blared the erroneous banner headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman," Truman flashes a triumphant smile. It was in the station where Truman picked up a two-day-old copy of the Tribune. A newspaper error is famously photographed.Ī now-famous photograph taken two days after the president’s come-from-behind triumph. The president was on his way back to Washington from Missouri when his train stopped in St. Thurmond, the Dixiecrat, earned 39 electoral votes and 2.4 percent of the popular vote. Truman's underdog ticket racked up 303 electoral votes and 49.6 percent of the popular vote to Dewey’s 189 electoral votes and 45.1 percent of the popular vote. On Election Day, thanks to a coalition of voters that included organized labor, farmers, African Americans and Jews, Truman and his running mate, Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, pulled off their shocking victory. ![]() “Give ‘em hell, Harry” became a popular slogan among his supporters. The president embarked on a “whistle-stop” tour, traveling across America by train and giving speeches in which he spoke out against the “do-nothing” Republican-controlled 80th Congress. Meanwhile, Truman launched an aggressive, populist-style campaign. One newspaper contended his four major speeches could be reduced to four sentences: “Agriculture is important. With victory looking like a foregone conclusion for Dewey, the New York governor ran an uninspiring, risk-averse campaign. His onetime secretary of commerce (as well as Roosevelt’s vice president from 1941-45), Henry Wallace, who had a following among liberals, decided to run against his former boss as the Progressive Party’s candidate for the Oval Office. Truman was even facing competition from within his own cabinet. This had spurred the formation of the States’ Rights Democratic Party (or Dixiecrats) and the selection of Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as their presidential nominee. His civil rights initiatives had alienated the conservative, Southern wing of the organization. Further diminishing Truman’s prospects were divisions within his own political party. Rising inflation and labor unrest had contributed to the Democrats losing control of both chambers of Congress in 1946 for the first time in 14 years. Truman faced a weak economy and a divided party.
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