← 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 → Presidential election year
Election day
November 2
Incumbent president
Harry S. Truman (Democratic)
Next Congress
81st
Presidential election
Partisan control
Democratic hold
Popular vote margin
Democratic +4.5%
Electoral vote
Harry S. Truman (D)
303
Thomas E. Dewey (R)
189
Strom Thurmond (SRD)
39
1948 presidential election results. Red denotes states won by Dewey, blue denotes states won by Truman, and orange denotes states won by Thurmond. Numbers indicate the electoral votes won by each candidate.
Senate elections
Overall control
Democratic gain
Seats contested
33 of 96 seats (32 Class 2 seats + 2 special elections)[1]
Net seat change
Democratic +9
1948 Senate results
Democratic gain Democratic hold
Republican hold
House elections
Overall control
Democratic gain
Seats contested
All 435 voting members
Popular vote margin
Democratic +7.2%
Net seat change
Democratic +75
1948 House election results
Democratic gain Democratic hold
Republican gain Republican hold
Gubernatorial elections
Seats contested
33
Net seat change
Democratic +6
1948 gubernatorial election results
Democratic gain Democratic hold
Republican gain Republican hold
The 1948 United States 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 in an upset, 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, 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. In the House of Representatives, the Democrats won the national popular vote by a margin of 7.2 percentage points, flipped 75 seats from the Republicans, and won a sizable majority in the chamber; a large swing in the House of Representatives would not occur again until 2010.
In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats won six seats from the Republicans and won a majority of gubernatorial offices, Puerto Rico also elected Luis Muñoz Marín of the Popular Democratic Party as its first democratically elected governor.
^One Class 2 Senate seat held both a regularly-scheduled election and a special election in 1948. This seat is not double-counted for the number of total seats.
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