# When Dewey Beat Truman... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 3, 2004, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730 "2004-11-03T12:09:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/1 "2004-11-03T12:09:51Z")
What happened when Dewey beat Truman? How did America handle that? Was it a hotly contested race? Was the Electoral vote rather evenly split? I was hoping many in of the SDopers may recall… - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/2 "2004-11-03T12:13:23Z")
When was that? President Dewey… I’ve been up since …well too damned long. Seems like I remember it the other way around. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/3 "2004-11-03T12:25:31Z")
It ultimately wasn’t that close: more people voted for Truman, and he got more electoral votes. It was a surprise, but no one was upset any more than any other political loss. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/4 "2004-11-03T12:31:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It ultimately wasn’t that close: more people voted for Truman, and he got more electoral votes. It was a surprise, but no one was upset any more than any other political loss. But, surely it must have been close when a nationally recognized paper would run such a bold headline claiming Dewey the winner! - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![Waccoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Waccoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waccoe)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/5 "2004-11-03T12:33:51Z")
In those days the exit polls were even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/6 "2004-11-03T12:37:30Z")
It really wasn’t that close. Truman won by about 2 million popular votes, and got 303 electoral votes to Dewey’s 189, with 39 going to Thurmond. Dewey was just doing better than expected early in the night, and the Tribune got overconfident in their early editions. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/7 "2004-11-03T12:45:57Z")
To differ with almost **everyone** above: The **pre-election** opinion polls, from the summer right up through mid-October, all called Dewey the winner, and the press fed on each other’s expertise, which was based on these polls, to take some rather supercilious attitudes – including a publicist writing _before the election_ on the composition of Mr. Dewey’s cabinet and another stating that Mr. Truman ought to resign in order to avoid interfering with the will of the people. Mr. Truman himself was convinced he would win, and even called – accurately – how the electoral vote would fall out. Contrary to what **Captain Amazing** said, the _Tribune_ went to press before anything like complete results were in, but with Truman in the lead, but the editor decided to banner “what everybody knew would happen” as the one sure thing about the election. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-dewey-beat-truman/272730/8 "2004-11-03T15:11:51Z")
And just to amplify a bit on what \*\*Polycarp \*\* said. Dewey, who had been the nominee in 1944, had a united Republican party behind him. Truman had a seriously fractured bunch of Democrats. Herny Wallace – who Roosevelt had dumped from the ticket in favor of Truman, bolted the party and ran as an independent. Southern Democrats, led by Strom Thurmond (yes, that Strom Thurmond) had walked out of the convention after passage of a strong Civil Rights platform and Thurmond was ALSO running as an independent. Conventional wisdom was that Truman, having lost the support of both the liberal and conservative segments of the party, had no chance to defeat Dewey.