Harry S Truman - proof that predicting elections can be a mug's game

In 1934 he was elected as a Democrat to represent Missouri in the US Senate. There he made a reputation for himself as a workhorse, especially attracting favourable national attention as the chair of a Senate committee investigating war contracts. Much admired by his fellow Senators, he became Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s reluctant running mate in the presidential election of 1944. He was only vice-president for 11 weeks and five days, becoming president on FDR’s death on April 12 1945.

During his presidency Truman took many historically significant decisions which went far to shape the second half of the 20th century but prior to presidential election of 1948 Truman’s popularity, measured by polling, was dropping steadily. His approval rating stood in the low 30s at one point. He was the butt of jokes: ‘To err is Truman’; ‘What would Truman do if he were alive?’ and ‘Don’t shoot the piano player [Truman was a gifted piano player who had once dreamed of becoming a concert pianist]; he’s doing the best he can.’

As he was universally regarded as incapable of winning, the Democrats wished to dump him as their nominee but never quite managed it.

An oppressive cloud of pessimism hung over the Democratic National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota, but Truman delivered an impressive fighting, even bellicose, acceptance speech denouncing the Republican-controlled 80th Congress as ‘the Do Nothing Congress’.

Believing in himself when virtually no one else did, during the election campaign Truman put his case directly to the people and covered 21,982 miles, crisscrossing the United States by train, delivering speeches from the rear platform of the observation car and drawing huge crowds. For example, he told an early-morning crowd at Dodge City, Kansas: ’I have talked to a great many people, and great many people have talked to me, and … I think I have definitely fixed the issues which are before the country now. It is merely the fact: are the special privilege boys going to run the country, or are the people to run this country? It is up to you decide.’

Six stops in Michigan attracted a combined audience of 500,000 people and such events were replicated across America. Ordinary people were mightily impressed by his force of character and resilience. He was regularly greeted with the slogan ‘Give ’em hell, Harry’, at stop after stop as he ‘barnstormed’ across the country. These whistle-stop speaking engagements signified an important change in the direction of the campaign but this failed to register with the press corps.

The press remained convinced that Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate and governor of New York, was a shoe-in on the basis of polling. One reason why the polling proved so inaccurate was because it was largely conducted by telephone. Since Truman voters were less likely to own a telephone this skewed poll findings heavily in Dewey’s favour.

A second factor was that the main polling organisations, assuming that the result was a foregone conclusion, stopped polling well before November 2. They thus completely failed to acknowledge the Truman surge towards the end of the campaign.

Alistair Cooke, the distinguished British-born broadcaster and a brilliant commentator on American politics and current affairs who rarely ever got anything wrong, even wrote an article for the then Manchester Guardian entitled ‘Harry S Truman: A Study of a Failure’ which appeared on election day.

Truman was so widely expected to lose that the Chicago Tribune – without even waiting for the result – had confidently printed its first edition with the headline proclaiming: ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’. The defining image of the election is surely the famous photograph of a beaming Truman holding up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. Like every other newspaper, the Washington Post got it wrong. After the election, the Post sent a telegram to Truman:

‘You Are Hereby Invited To “A Crow Banquet” To Which This Newspaper Proposes To Invite Newspaper Editorial Writers, Political Reporters And Editors, Including Our Own, Along With Pollsters, Radio Commentators And Columnists ... Main Course Will Consist Of Breast Of Tough Old Crow En Glace. (You Will Eat Turkey.)’

Dress for the guest of honour was to be white tie, for the others sackcloth. In reply, Truman wrote that he had ‘no desire to crow over anyone or see any one eat crow figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together now and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.’

Clark Clifford, Truman’s chief electoral strategist, explained why in his estimation his candidate had won: ‘He was a good politician … a sensible politician … But that wasn’t why he was elected President … It was the remarkable courage of the man – his refusal to be discouraged, his willingness to go through the suffering of that campaign, the fatigue, the will to fight every step of the way, the will to win… It wasn’t Harry Truman the politician who won it, it was Harry Truman the man.’

Arthur Vandenberg, a Republican senator from Michigan, made a similar point. ‘You’ve got to give the little man credit,’ he said admiringly. ‘There he was flat on his back. Everybody had counted him out but he came up fighting and won the battle. That’s the kind of courage the American people admire.’

Groucho Marx wittily observed the only way a Republican would ever get into the White House was to marry Margaret Truman (the president’s daughter). He was mistaken because in 1952 Republican Dwight D Eisenhower, the commander of Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War, defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson, a man of Ulster-Scots descent, by a landslide. And if there is a lesson in all this, it may be that predicting the outcome of presidential elections is a mug’s game.