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| Elections in Nebraska |
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The 1944 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 7, 1944, as part of the 1944 United States presidential election. Voters chose six [2] representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
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Nebraska was won by the Republican nominee, Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey, running with Governor of Ohio John Bricker, with 58.58% of the popular vote, against incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, running with Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman, with 41.42% of the popular vote. [3] [4]
Dewey won the Cornhusker State by a large margin of 17.2%, a 2.8% increase from Wendell Willkie's margin 4 years earlier in 1940. Key to his victory were his large margins in the rural agriculture-reliant counties, which had supported Roosevelt in his previous runs in 1932 and 1936, however turned against him in 1940, largely due to parts of The New Deal which paid farmers to destroy their crops to prevent overproduction backfiring, and causing food shortages, along with requiring more food to be imported from other countries. [5] [6] With a swing to the right of 2.8%, Nebraska continued its heavy trend to the Republican column, with 1944 marking its 3rd consecutive swing the right, which began in 1936 with Alf Landon's surprising overperformance. Roosevelt did however manage to flip Greeley County by 23 votes, which had voted for Willkie.
Although voters in Nebraska would soundly reject him, Roosevelt managed to maintain much of his prior strength throughout the rest of the country and won an unprecedented fourth and final term. As the election took place in the midst of the Second World War, which was going well for The Allies, with major Allied victories in both Europe and The Pacific, especially the Liberation of Paris in France in August and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines just a couple weeks before the election in October, most Americans felt little to no need to change leadership, and he was able to once again win landslides in both the popular vote and electoral college, although this election would be his closest.
Republicans campaigned against the New Deal and in support of a smaller government, including a repeal of many of the wartime restrictions on the economy, as the end of the war appeared to be in sight. Roosevelt was dogged by allegations of poor health throughout the entire campaign, which he attempted to dispel by campaigning vigorously, especially in the final month of the race in October. Dewey was able to revive some of the strength that Republicans had in the 1920s in the Northeast and Midwest, it would ultimately not be enough, and the GOP would fall short once again. Rumors of Roosevelt's ill health proved to be true, however, as he died three months into his fourth term.
With a nationwide Roosevelt popular vote victory margin of 7.5%, Nebraska voted 24.7% to the right of the nation, and the state would prove to be Dewey's second strongest state after Kansas. [7] Dewey's margin of victory was the most for any candidate since Roosevelt himself in 1932 and the most for a Republican since Herbert Hoover in 1928.
