# 1944 Presidential Election [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s fourth-term run, conducted during World War II with FDR in visibly declining health. FDR defeated Republican [[Thomas E. Dewey]], the racket-busting New York governor, 432 to 99 electoral votes, 53.4% to 45.9% in the popular vote. The most consequential decision of the 1944 cycle was made before the election: the Democratic Party replaced Vice President Henry Wallace (a progressive aligned with the labor-left wing of the party) with Missouri Senator [[Harry S. Truman]] (a moderate from a border state acceptable to Southern Democrats). The substitution was made at the July 1944 Chicago convention with the explicit awareness — among party insiders, though not among voters — that FDR's health was failing and that the new VP would likely become president before the term ended. FDR died on April 12, 1945, less than three months into the fourth term. ## Result - **[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]** (Democrat) — 432 electoral votes, 53.4% popular - **Thomas E. Dewey** (Republican) — 99 electoral votes, 45.9% popular - Total: 531 electoral votes - Turnout: 55.9% (lower because of millions of Americans deployed overseas) ## Right-wing relevance The 1944 election's right-wing relevance is mostly procedural: it produced [[Harry S. Truman]] as the post-FDR Cold War president, and the four-term precedent that produced the [[22nd Amendment]]. The Wallace-to-Truman VP substitution is also a recurring case study in **vice-presidential selection consequences** — comparable in import to the McKinley-Roosevelt 1900 placement. The election's wartime conduct (with millions of Americans serving overseas voting by absentee ballot for the first time at large scale) established procedural precedents that informed later elections under war or pandemic conditions. ## Connections - [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] — Elected to fourth term; died April 1945. - [[Harry S. Truman]] — New VP; succeeded on FDR's death three months in. ---