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How possible is it for FDR to lose in 1944?

C

Coiler

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How likely barring a freak ASB occurrence is it for FDR to lose reelection in 1944, whether to Dewey or someone else (dunno the other credible GOP candidates)?
 
Not very. Dewey won by a huge margin at the Republican convention, and two of his competitors - Douglas MacArthur and Harold Stassen - were actively serving in the Pacific at the time and couldn't campaign. Robert A. Taft had been considered a front runner, but decided not to run and threw his support for fellow Ohioan John W. Bricker, who ended up being Dewey's Vice Presidential candidate. The Wisconsin primary proved Dewey's overwhelming popularity over the other candidates and it was a foregone conclusion at that point. Dewey ended up with 1,056 convention votes to MacArthur's 1. Even if Taft had become the candidate, his well known isolationism likely would have hurt him in the general election, as it did in 1940 when he lost out to Wendell Willkie for the Republican nomination. In the middle of a winning war I can't see him doing any better.

In the election itself, the popular vote was relatively close with FDR's 53% to Dewey's 45%. But the Electoral Vote map was another story, with FDR getting 81% to Dewey's 18%. Barring some scandals, I can't see FDR getting unseated. Even if the war goes badly, that would likely be put on military officers or intelligence services rather than FDR himself, as the Pearl Harbor investigations showed.
 
1944 wasn’t much of a landslide, but I’d say the chances of FDR losing it are pretty near zero. No matter how well or how poorly WWII is going, it makes the election a wartime choice between the longest-serving president in American history & a Republican bench with no military credibility (Dewey et al.) or no credibility on anything else (MacArthur) - and if the war is already over, then FDR has just won it! Republicans don’t have an out here.

FDR’s health would need to be so obviously awful - keeping in mind that his health was shit but in 1944 he had probably the most sympathetic media coverage of any President, ever - for it to be crystal clear that he physically cannot do the job again. And you’d need a worse VP pick than Truman on top of that, frankly.
 
Coiler said:
How likely barring a freak ASB occurrence is it for FDR to lose reelection in 1944, whether to Dewey or someone else (dunno the other credible GOP candidates)?
Click to expand...

Extremely likely and very easy, no ASBs required. Shift just 2.5% of the vote and you've got President Dewey:

genusmap.php
 
Walpurgisnacht said:
How that 2.5% get shifted, though, is sort of the main question. You can win any election for any side if you bring it down to just moving vote totals around at will.
Click to expand...

To put it in perspective, 2.5% is basically a bad debate performance; 2012 was a good example of this as the first debate between Romney and Obama shifted the polls by about that much. There's numerous PoDs in 1944 that could be used, such as details of FDR's health leaking out or the War going worse than OTL.
 
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