“Never argue with the Gallup Poll”: Thomas Dewey, Civil Rights and the Election of 1948

Abstract

Thomas Dewey, the progressive Republican governor of New York from 1942 to 1954 famously “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory” in the presidential election of 1948. It was an election that everyone, with the possible exception of Harry S. Truman, had expected Dewey to win. Truman, like much of the historiography, credited his victory to the farm vote, and this was undoubtedly an important factor, but it is clear that without the votes of African Americans Truman could not have won. This piece will examine why Dewey lost, surveying his record on civil rights as governor (arguably the best in the nation) and his abject failure to convert, indeed, to even attempt to convert, this record into African American votes in 1948. This failure is made more curious by the fact that he was constantly being warned by African American Republicans and his closest confidante about the pivotal nature of the African American vote. Yet Dewey, a notoriously lethargic campaigner, would ignore their admonishments.