The Pittsburgh Press (November 3, 1944)
Background of news –
New York and the election
By Bertram Benedict
In the election, the state of New York has 47 (17 percent) of the 266 electoral votes necessary to elect a President. This is more than the combined electoral vote of 12 other states.
Governor Dewey has been a good vote-getter in New York. In 1938, he ran against Governor Lehman, another good vote-getter, for the New York governorship and came within a hair’s breadth of winning. Mr. Lehman received 1,971,000 votes on the Democratic ticket and 420,000 on the American Labor Party ticket, for a total of 2,391,000. Mr. Dewey, receiving 2,327,000, was defeated by only 64,000 votes out of more than 4,700,000 cast.
In the same year, the two Republican candidates for U.S. Senator from New York (one for an unexpired term) lost by 438,000 votes and 355,000 votes, respectively. Two years before, the Republican gubernatorial candidate had lost by 521,000 votes.
But in 1942, Mr. Dewey defeated the Democratic candidate and the American Labor Party candidate by a clear majority of 245,000.
Opposed by Willkie in 1942
Mr. Dewey received the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1942 over the ill-disguised opposition of the late Wendell L. Willkie. When the state Republican leaders obviously were about to swing the party nominating convention over to Mr. Dewey, Mr. Willkie came out for a free-for-all nomination race, although disclaiming any ambitions for himself or any participation in a Stop-Dewey movement.
Mr. Willkie himself had run well in New York against President Roosevelt in 1940. There Mr. Willkie had 48 percent of the major party vote, as against 45 percent in the nation as a whole. If one in every 25 New Yorkers, net, who voted for Mr. Roosevelt in 1940 should vote for Mr. Dewey this year, the Republican will carry the state – provided he holds the Willkie voters.
However, the fact that Mr. Dewey ran well for Governor does not necessarily mean that he will run as well for president in the Empire State. Alfred E. Smith was also a great gubernatorial vote-getter, but the state which sent him to the Governor’s Mansion at Albany four times (once in a Republican landslide year, 1924) would not vote to send him to the White House in 1928.
And in 1928, while New York was voting against Mr. Smith as the Democratic presidential candidate, it was voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
The New York vote in 1916
In 1916, the Republicans nominated for the Presidency Justice Charles E. Hughes of New York, largely because he was expected to carry, in what looked like a close election, the state in which he had been elected Governor in 1906 and 1908. The expectation was realized, for Mr. Hughes carried New York by a substantial margin, but he lost the election by 23 electoral votes.
That was really the only time since the Civil War in which the country did not vote as New York voted. True, in 1876, New York voted for its Governor, Samuel J. Tilden, only to see Hayes elected, but probably Tilden was unfairly counted out. As it was, he had a popular majority.
With Dewey vs. Roosevelt, it is the second time since 1904 (Theodore Roosevelt vs. Alton B. Parker) that both major party candidates have been New Yorkers. Four years ago, Mr. Willkie was a resident of New York City. He was a native of Indiana rather than the Empire State, but neither is Mr. Dewey a native New Yorker. He was born in Michigan.