1948 Republican National Convention

The 1948 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia nominated Thomas E. Dewey for president and Earl Warren for vice president, presenting a ticket widely regarded as a formidable route to victory. The gathering also sharpened the contrast between the Republicans’ confidence and Harry S. Truman’s assessment that their choice might not be as strong an opponent as Robert Taft.

Atmosphere and Expectations

Before the convention opened, the outlook for Truman’s reelection campaign was already bleak. At a rally, former congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce called him a “gone goose,” and the book describes an atmosphere of anticipated Republican victory that lasted from the convention’s first day through its closing celebration. The confidence was not confined to convention-goers: Time and Newsweek both judged that only a miracle, or a series of extraordinary political blunders, could spare Truman a crushing defeat.

Nomination and Ticket

The convention opened in Philadelphia on Monday, June 21. Five contenders had received the most public attention: Dewey, Taft, Vandenberg, Stassen, and Martin. Dewey, favored by the party’s eastern liberal wing, showed commanding strength from the outset and won the presidential nomination on the third ballot, after Stassen declined to release his delegates to Taft. Dewey chose Earl Warren, governor of California, as his running mate. Together, the two popular, relatively youthful governors of the country’s largest and wealthiest states were presented as an especially attractive national ticket.

Truman’s View of the Choice

Truman privately thought the Republicans had made a mistake. He considered Taft an honorable man who deserved the nomination and believed Taft would have been a tougher opponent than Dewey. That judgment sat uneasily beside the prevailing confidence that Dewey’s nomination made defeat for Truman all but certain. The convention therefore mattered not only for the ticket it assembled, but also as a moment when expectations about the general election hardened around the apparent strength of the Republican choice.

The Convention and the Events Beyond It

Dewey’s nomination did not leave Truman long to dwell on the Republican gathering. On the day Dewey was selected, June 24, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on rail, road, and water traffic into and out of Berlin. Truman confronted the crisis with firmness, rejecting proposals for an armed land convoy or retaliatory closures while insisting that American forces would remain in Berlin. The sudden international emergency placed the convention’s confident election forecasts alongside a crisis demanding presidential attention.