1948: What if Thurmond Held the Decisive Electors? - (Election What-If)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 04:44:03 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Election What-ifs? (Moderator: Dereich)
  1948: What if Thurmond Held the Decisive Electors? - (Election What-If)
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: 1948: What if Thurmond Held the Decisive Electors? - (Election What-If)  (Read 834 times)
rbt48
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,060


WWW Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: February 19, 2012, 09:50:34 PM »

Imagine if Dewey had nosed out Truman in Ohio and California in 1948 (he lost them by .24% and .44%, respectively).  The electoral count would have been:
Truman - 254,
Dewey - 239,
Thurmond - 38 (I'm giving the Tennessee elector who strayed from Truman back to him in this scenario).

(1) Would the election have been settled in the House (81st Congress), controlled by the Democrats 263 - 171 - 1 (AL)?

(2) Would Thurmond have made a deal for his electors to decide the election in the Electoral College?
 - Consider what the dealing might have been over and what Dewey might have been offered in exchange for Thurmond's electors.

(3) What about the Vice Presidency?  If the race had been settled by the Senate, would the 53 -43 Democratic majority have held for Barkely?
Logged
Jerseyrules
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,544
United States


Political Matrix
E: 10.00, S: -4.26

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2012, 02:42:49 AM »
« Edited: February 20, 2012, 02:48:35 AM by Jerseyrules »

Imagine if Dewey had nosed out Truman in Ohio and California in 1948 (he lost them by .24% and .44%, respectively).  The electoral count would have been:
Truman - 254,
Dewey - 239,
Thurmond - 38 (I'm giving the Tennessee elector who strayed from Truman back to him in this scenario).

(1) Would the election have been settled in the House (81st Congress), controlled by the Democrats 263 - 171 - 1 (AL)?

(2) Would Thurmond have made a deal for his electors to decide the election in the Electoral College?
 - Consider what the dealing might have been over and what Dewey might have been offered in exchange for Thurmond's electors.

(3) What about the Vice Presidency?  If the race had been settled by the Senate, would the 53 -43 Democratic majority have held for Barkely?


234 Democrats elected in the House.  Why 234?  Because there were 29 races where the margin of error was under 5% and I think it's perfectly reasonable that if Dewey ran a better campaign, and focused more on the Congressional races, then he would've been fine.  Now, this is a slim majority, but even so, it is likely that Truman would be given the necessary electors.  Why?  Because he was much less of a progressive on civil rights than Dewey.  The man on top of the wedding cake would need to do a lot of ideological pandering to convince Thurmond to give him the needed electors.  Now the senate is an entirely different story.  50-46 is possible, as there were 4 seats that went Democratic that really could've gone either way.  That means only 3 crossovers are needed to throw Barkley off.  Maybe Russell is chosen as the compromise candidate to keep the southern Dems in line.  But then the GOP is in a much more powerful position to take back the Congress in 50, and in a stronger majority position in 52, with Taft as the likely nominee, just cuz Wink
Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.022 seconds with 11 queries.