In 1948 no one gave President Harry Truman a chance to win election on his own. He had taken over in the spring of 1945 when POTUS Franklin Roosevelt died. He went up against the Republican nominee  Thomas Dewey in 1948. Dewey was favored to win and Dewey kind of took it for granted that he had the election in the bag. Harry Truman though was a man who didn’t give up easily.

After Labor Day the Truman campaign started to pick up. In his speeches he was critical of the ‘do nothing Congress” the crowds started to increase. He went on a big ‘whistle stop’ train tour. The ‘experts’ kind of ignored the fact that Truman {who didn’t mention Dewey by name the entire campaign} was getting increasingly larger crowds. They thought this was just people coming out of curiosity to see a POTUS.

On Election Day 1948 the Truman’s went home to Independence, Missouri and voted. That night around midnight heard an NBC report that he was up by a million votes but that Dewey was still expected to win. Truman went to bed. Secret Service woke him up at 4am to tell him he had won. The Electoral College wasn’t even close. Truman 303-189 over Dewey. A couple days later Truman was famously pictured holding the Chicago Tribune claiming “Dewey Defeats Truman”