ELECTION SURPRISES: TRUMAN'S 1948 VICTORY
and his daughter (The Boss' Boss). Despite the warm response to his "give-em-hell" speeches, polls still showed Truman far behind Dewey.
Dewey seemed to ignore Truman. He campaigned more like a president trying to stay abovt politics. He seemed to most people very stiff and stuffy. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt, said that Dewey looked like the little groom on the top of wedding cakes.
But some people saw the signs correctly, even if they didn't believe what they saw. In Kansas City, a feed supply company conducted their own informal poll by putting donkeys and elephants on the feed sacks, giving farmers the chance to register the preferences by which sacks they purchased. By early September, 20,000 farmers had been polled this way and 54% of them had voted Democratic. The company abandoned the survey saying, "We read the Gallup and Roper polls that were all for Dewey and we decided that our results were too improbable." A similar "popcorn poll" at movie theaters netted the same improbable results.
Just before the election, Gallup gave the election to Dewey by 49.5% to 44.5%. Crossley said almost exactly the same. Roper gave Dewey 52.2% to 37.1% for Truman. When the election was over, Truman had beaten Dewey by more than two million votes and carried 28 states (303 electoral votes) to Dewey's 16 (189 electoral votes). On the way back to Washington, Truman stopped in St. Louis and held up a copy of the Chicago Tribune (published too early) announcing in a big headline, "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." He had a great deal of fun imitating national commentator H.V. Kaltenborn's staccato-pitched voice predicting his defeat in election night broadcasts.
One man, on election night, told a reporter that political experts were like weathermen. He said, "The weathermen predicted rain tonight, and the political experts picked Dewey. There's no rain, and it might not even be dewey."
The Washington Post hung a large banner across it's building in Washington reading, "Mr. President, we are ready to eat crow whenever you are ready to serve it." The Post also invited him to a dinner for "political reporters and editors, including our own, along with pollsters, radio commentators and columnists...the main course will consist of tough old crow en glace. (You will eat turkey.)" The Democratic National Committee offered to furnish the toothpicks since it would take months to get the crow out of the diners' teeth.
One pollster did
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