1948 United States elections
elections in the United States in 1948
Elections were held on November 2, 1948. The election took place during the beginning stages of the Cold War. Democratic incumbent President Harry S. Truman was elected to a full term defeating Republican nominee New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and two erstwhile Democrats. The Democrats won back control of Congress from the Republicans. Until 2020, the Democrats would never again flip a chamber of Congress in a presidential election cycle.
In the presidential election, President Truman ran for reelection despite being widely seen, even by fellow Democrats, as a vulnerable incumbent who was too risky for the party to nominate, but he ultimately won his party's nomination. In the fight for the Republican nomination, Thomas E. Dewey, who lost the previous presidential election, was renominated. In the end, Truman won the presidential election over Dewey in an upset.
In the congressional elections, the Democratic Party benefited from the coattails of Truman's victory and retook Congress. In the Senate, the Democrats took nine seats from the Republicans, regaining control of the chamber.
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This entry incorporates text from “1948 United States elections” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.