How many copies of dewey defeats truman

But the answers and their impact helped launch a far-ranging new field of study at the fledgling Institute for Social Research ISR , establish electoral behavior as a discipline in political science, and shine a light on polling and sampling methodology nationwide. At St. Truman as Mr. Photo credit: campaign scrapbook of Harry S. Truman, trumanlibrary. It was the fall of , and incumbent President Harry S. Truman was embroiled in a grueling campaign against Republican challenger, Thomas E.

Newly arrived researcher Robert Kahn was working with founder and future ISR director Angus Campbell on a study of public attitudes toward foreign policy for the U. State Department. As an afterthought, Campbell and Kahn threw in two questions to gauge the political interests and orientations of the respondents.

Kahn and Campbell ran their survey in October, finishing shortly before the Nov. Still, as the responses to the survey came in and Kahn posted them on a blackboard, a surprising trend began to emerge: The two candidates were running neck and neck, with Truman slightly ahead, and more than 20 percent of voters still undecided. Robert Kahn in Also by Thomas Mallon. Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History.

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Jennifer Chiaverini. The Castle in the Forest. Norman Mailer. Red Water. Judith Freeman. Dizzy City. Nicholas Griffin. The Lost Prince. Selden Edwards. Critically important, though, was a printers' strike, which forced the paper to go to press hours before it normally would. As the first-edition deadline approached, managing editor J.

Henning said Dewey. Henning was rarely wrong. The ink was hardly dry on , copies of the paper when radio bulletins reported that the race was surprisingly close. Truman went on to take Illinois and much of the Midwest in this whopping election surprise.

The headline might well have been quickly forgotten but for a chance encounter two days later in St.