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| Turnout | 86.74%[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 County results Municipality results
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The1948 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 2, 1948, as part of the1948 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 16 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Massachusetts voted for theDemocratic nominee, incumbentPresidentHarry S. Truman ofMissouri, over theRepublican nominee, formerGovernorThomas E. Dewey ofNew York. Truman ran withSenatorAlben W. Barkley ofKentucky, while Dewey's running mate wasGovernorEarl Warren ofCalifornia.
Truman carried the state with 54.66% of the vote to Dewey's 43.16%, a Democratic victory margin of 11.50%.Progressive Party candidateHenry A. Wallace came in a distant third, with 1.81%. As Truman narrowly won an upset victory over Dewey nationally, Massachusetts weighed in as 7% more Democratic than the national average.
Once a typical Yankee Republican bastion in the wake of theCivil War, Massachusetts had been a Democratic-leaning state since1928, when a coalition of Irish Catholic and other ethnic immigrant voters primarily based in urban areas turned Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island intoNew England's only reliably Democratic states. Massachusetts voted forAl Smith in 1928 and forFranklin D. Roosevelt four times in the 1930s and 1940s. Truman's victory thus marked the Democratic Party's sixth straight win in Massachusetts.
Despite the national race being much closer, Truman in 1948 outperformed any of Roosevelt's four victories in the state of Massachusetts. FDR had never won the state with more than a single-digit margin; Roosevelt's largest margin of victory was by 9.46% in1936 and he never took a vote share higher than the 53.11% he received in1940. In1944, Roosevelt carried Massachusetts with 52.80% to Dewey's 46.99%, a fairly close margin of only 5.81%. Truman's victory four years later taking 54.66% and winning by 11.50% thus made 1948 the strongest showing ever by a Democratic presidential candidate in Massachusetts up to that point, a record that would stand untilJohn F. Kennedy ran from Massachusetts in1960.[citation needed]
Truman would carry 8 of the state's 14 counties, including the most heavily populated parts of the state surrounding the cities ofBoston,Worcester, andSpringfield. Notably, Truman flipped highly populatedMiddlesex County, in which did not vote for any of Franklin Roosevelt's four victories in the state, into the Democratic column.[2] Massachusetts and neighboringRhode Island were the only states in theNortheast to favor Truman over Dewey in 1948, the same split that had occurred in 1928. Both states had large urban Irish Catholic populations, who remained loyal Democrats in the wake of 1928, even as other groups defected back to the GOP.
| 1948 United States presidential election in Massachusetts[3] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | Harry S. Truman (incumbent) | 1,151,788 | 54.66% | 16 | |
| Republican | Thomas E. Dewey | 909,370 | 43.16% | 0 | |
| Progressive | Henry A. Wallace | 38,157 | 1.81% | 0 | |
| Socialist Labor | Edward A. Teichert | 5,535 | 0.26% | 0 | |
| Prohibition | Claude A. Watson | 1,663 | 0.08% | 0 | |
| Write-ins | Write-ins | 633 | 0.03% | 0 | |
| Totals | 2,107,146 | 100.00% | 16 | ||
| County[4] | Harry S. Truman Democratic | Thomas E. Dewey Republican | Henry Wallace Progressive | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total votes cast | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Barnstable | 4,616 | 23.68% | 14,633 | 75.08% | 183 | 0.94% | 58 | 0.30% | -10,017 | -51.40% | 19,490 |
| Berkshire | 30,668 | 51.75% | 27,482 | 46.37% | 738 | 1.25% | 379 | 0.64% | 3,186 | 5.38% | 59,267 |
| Bristol | 106,741 | 61.86% | 63,216 | 36.64% | 1,914 | 1.11% | 680 | 0.39% | 43,525 | 25.22% | 172,551 |
| Dukes | 720 | 28.99% | 1,731 | 69.69% | 26 | 1.05% | 7 | 0.28% | -1,011 | -40.70% | 2,484 |
| Essex | 132,016 | 53.58% | 108,894 | 44.20% | 4,483 | 1.82% | 978 | 0.40% | 23,122 | 9.38% | 246,371 |
| Franklin | 9,231 | 37.87% | 14,919 | 61.21% | 130 | 0.53% | 93 | 0.38% | -5,688 | -23.34% | 24,373 |
| Hampden | 94,609 | 56.41% | 70,256 | 41.89% | 2,302 | 1.37% | 553 | 0.33% | 24,353 | 14.52% | 167,720 |
| Hampshire | 18,012 | 50.27% | 17,331 | 48.37% | 313 | 0.87% | 177 | 0.49% | 681 | 1.90% | 35,833 |
| Middlesex | 248,240 | 51.09% | 228,262 | 46.98% | 7,601 | 1.56% | 1,805 | 0.37% | 19,978 | 4.11% | 485,908 |
| Nantucket | 409 | 28.36% | 1,013 | 70.25% | 14 | 0.97% | 6 | 0.42% | -604 | -41.89% | 1,442 |
| Norfolk | 72,327 | 40.92% | 100,280 | 56.74% | 3,420 | 1.94% | 710 | 0.40% | -27,953 | -15.82% | 176,737 |
| Plymouth | 34,765 | 40.83% | 48,925 | 57.46% | 1,281 | 1.50% | 175 | 0.21% | -14,160 | -16.63% | 85,146 |
| Suffolk | 265,611 | 68.98% | 105,671 | 27.44% | 12,360 | 3.21% | 1,425 | 0.37% | 159,940 | 41.54% | 385,067 |
| Worcester | 133,823 | 54.68% | 106,757 | 43.62% | 3,382 | 1.38% | 785 | 0.32% | 27,066 | 11.06% | 244,757 |
| Totals | 1,151,788 | 54.66% | 909,370 | 43.16% | 38,157 | 1.81% | 7,831 | 0.37% | 242,418 | 11.50% | 2,107,146 |
State and district results of the1948 United States presidential election | ||
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