1952Governor Cathcon of Michigan (Republican Party) - 45.18% (185)
Attorney General Maxwell of Tennessee (Democratic Party) - 44.33% (229)
Congressman TNF of Illinois (American Labor Party) - 8.49% (117)
Elected Governor of Michigan with the backing of Henry Ford and the virulently anti-union National Association of Manufacturers in 1946, Cathcon at first seemed an odd choice for the Republican Party in 1952. Once the party of anti-Catholicism and nativism, the party had, in a surprise move, nominated a Catholic candidate for President. Part of this was the desire to appeal to a new constituency they had been hitherto unable to win: the white 'ethnic' voter, which they saw as largely Catholic, working class, and trade union oriented. Cathcon, although no friend of labor unions, had been an active proponent of this 'New Look' within the GOP, melding conservative social values (opposition to New Deal social engineering) with conservative anticommunism. Re-elected in the midst of the Korean War in 1950, he would catapult himself to the head of the GOP calling for a strong foreign defense against communism and "nothing short of total victory" in Korea.
The Democratic Party, hobbling along for nearly two decades in power, was ultimately torn apart by the Korean War. The losses on the Allied side caused President Truman to call it quits and withdraw from the race, transforming it into a free-for-all right up until the convention, when after a series of exhaustive ballots, a compromise candidate, Attorney General and former Oklahoma Senator Maxwell, as nominated for President. Maxwell appealed to anti-war Democrats as well as Democratic conservatives; he promised to 'respect the Constitution' and act in a 'fiscally responsible manner', as well as bring an end to the war in Korea. His retreat from New Deal politics, as well as his vote for the Taft-Hartley Act while in the Senate in 1947, would ultimately lead to a mass exodus of liberals and left-wingers from the Democratic camp into a growing opposition camp that sought to hold on to what was left of Roosevelt's New Deal.
The American Labor Party, which originated as a front for Old Guard socialists to support the New Deal, only claimed two members in Congress as of 1952. One was the young and dynamic Vito Marcantonio of New York, and the other was a Congressman from Illinois, TNF, representing a Southside Chicago industrial district. The ALP was by this point regarded by many as a Communist front, and there was likely some truth to this, given the fact that the Communist Party had effectively used the ALP as a vehicle to elect Marcantonio and TNF in their respective districts. This is neither here nor there. The ALP, working in conjunction with progressives upset with the right turn of the Democrats and with labor unions expelled from the AFL and CIO for having "red" leadership, would ultimately launch and coordinate the Presidential candidacy of TNF in 1952. He would run on a ticket opposing the war in Korea, supporting full on repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, and supporting a 'rapid and peaceful transition to industrial democracy at home'.
In the end, no candidate claimed a majority in the electoral college. This threw the election to the House of Representatives, which elected the Republican ticket.
