Chapter 240: US OTL 1944 Election Campaign and ATL Adjusted Electoral System
As promised, here's the background for the US 1944 Presidential Election. First, from Wikipedia, here's the short version of what happened in the OTL campaign and election. I'll then set out the campaign starting point for this ATL election and how the vote will be decided.
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OTL 1944 Campaign
The 1944 United States presidential election was the 40th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win an unprecedented fourth term.
Roosevelt had become the first and only president to win a third term with his victory in the 1940 presidential election, with little doubt that he would seek a fourth term. Unlike in 1940, Roosevelt faced little opposition within his own party, and he easily won the presidential nomination of the 1944 Democratic National Convention. Concerned that Roosevelt's ill health would mean the vice president would likely become president, the convention dropped Roosevelt's vice president Henry A. Wallace in favour of Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri.
Governor Dewey of New York emerged as the front-runner for the Republican nomination after his victory in the Wisconsin primary, and he defeated conservative Governor John W. Bricker at the 1944 Republican National Convention.
As World War II was going well for the United States and its Allies, Roosevelt remained popular despite his long tenure. Dewey campaigned against the New Deal and for a smaller government, but was ultimately unsuccessful in convincing the country to change course. The election was closer than Roosevelt's other presidential campaigns, but Roosevelt still won by a comfortable margin in the popular vote and by a wide margin in the Electoral College.
Democrat 1944 election poster.
The Republicans campaigned against the New Deal, seeking a smaller government and less-regulated economy as the end of the war seemed in sight. Nonetheless, Roosevelt's continuing popularity was the main theme of the campaign. To quiet rumours of his poor health, Roosevelt insisted on making a vigorous campaign swing in October and rode in an open car through city streets.
Dewey on the election trail.
A high point of the campaign occurred when Roosevelt, speaking to a meeting of labour union leaders, gave a speech carried on national radio in which he ridiculed Republican claims that his administration was corrupt and wasteful with tax money. In response, Governor Dewey gave a blistering partisan speech in Oklahoma City a few days later on national radio, in which he accused Roosevelt of being "indispensable" to corrupt big-city Democratic organisations and American Communists. However, American battlefield successes in Europe and the Pacific during the campaign, such as the liberation of Paris in August 1944 and the successful Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944, made President Roosevelt unbeatable.
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OTL Results
Throughout the campaign, Roosevelt led Dewey in all the polls by varying margins. On election day, the Democratic incumbent scored a fairly comfortable victory over his Republican challenger. Roosevelt took 36 states for 432 electoral votes (266 were needed to win), while Dewey won twelve states and 99 electoral votes. In the popular vote, Roosevelt won 25,612,916 (53.4%) votes to Dewey's 22,017,929 (45.9%).
OTL Results 1944.
OTL Electoral College Map 1944.
The important question had been which leader, Roosevelt or Dewey, should be chosen for the critical days of peacemaking and reconstruction following the war's conclusion. Most American voters concluded that they should retain the governing party, and particularly the president who represented it. They also felt it unsafe to do so in "wartime", in view of ever-increasing domestic disagreements.
Dewey did better against Roosevelt than any of Roosevelt's previous three Republican opponents: Roosevelt's percentage and margin of the total vote were both less than in 1940. Dewey flipped the states of Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Ohio from the previous election, while Roosevelt flipped Michigan.
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ATL Voting System – Starting Point
As mentioned in a previous post, the popular votes for each state have been adjusted on a +/- % basis across the board for each state. It so happens that even though the
total votes are almost identical, the hypothetical Electoral College vote would be quite decisively in favour of Dewey, given the distribution of the vote. Not an unusual occurrence in US electoral history and the kind of thing that can happen quite regularly in a range of electoral systems that are not strictly proportional.
The table below shows the new ATL campaign starting point for 1944, ranked from the safest Democrat state at the top down to the safest Republican one at the bottom, before any RNG swings are applied (see below). The number of electoral votes for each side if this was the final vote (EV) is listed.
Of interest, in this paradigm and using up to 4% as an indicative ‘swing state’ margin, big states such as New York (2.5%) and Illinois (4%) and medium sized ones such as Massachusetts (1.7%) and Minnesota (2%) are in the ‘at risk’ Republican column. For the Democrats, it is only the medium sized EVs of Kentucky (1.8%) and Oklahoma (3.9%) in this range.
In this 1944 College, there are 531 EVs, so the target is 266 for a win. To do that from his starting position here, Roosevelt needs to flip a net increase of 55 EVs. So, say New York and one or two other states would be all he’d need to turn around his currently losing position.
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RNG Swing Model
So, to the above table two factors will be applied. As mentioned, the first will be a national uniform swing, representing how the respective candidates fare overall during the campaign. The maximum possible at the extreme for either side is 4% national
swing (coincidentally, the rough position in the OTL 1944 outcome, with a full margin of about 7.5% in the end).
Then there will be a separate swing generated for each state (up to a maximum of 6%), reflecting local variations. The two will be combined and applied to the adjusted popular vote for each state and we will see how it goes! The table below shows the swing ranges and their chance of occurring by RNG.
I have my trusty old D&D % dice at the ready!
As it stands, due to the electoral geography and the different circumstances of this ATL, the two candidates are neck-and-neck in the popular vote, but Dewey has the edge in the projected Electoral College.
In the next update, we’ll find out how the ATL Campaign goes (national swing) and then get state-by-state results, working from the most decisive to the most marginal as each side tries to build its ‘road to 266’.
AuthAAR’s Note: So, a little bit like (but not nearly as accomplished as) @DensleyBlair's incomparable Echoes of A New Tomorrow: Life after Revolution in the Commonwealth of Britain, it may be this AAR has a bit more left in it yet as a purely narrative commentary extending into the post-war period. I'll tend to do smaller, sharper little update chapters as the fancy takes me, covering major events and trends, until the well is finally dry. This little sub-series on the 1944 US Election is an example.
