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Presidential elections are surrounded by a whirlwind mix of rhetoric, advertising, speech-making, debating, and politicking. The 1948 Presidential election of  Harry S. Truman was no exception, but it did offer one thing that is taken for granted in most elections today — a surprise ending. By the time the 1948 election started, most of the pollsters, newspapermen, and political strategists had concluded that Harry Truman had no possibility to win the election. These “authorities” had the shock of the century when Truman was declared the winner — by a comfortable margin.  “Upset!” announced the newspaper headlines. 

As explained in Upset! Harry Truman and the 1948 Election, Truman himself was fairly confident of his re-election.  Despite the worrisome results of pre-election polls, and the faltering funding for Truman’s election campaign, his 1948 Whistle Stop campaign drew remarkable numbers of people to see the President. The impossibility of a Truman victory for his opponents is neatly summed up in the legendary photograph of the newly-elected President Truman, surrounded by a cheering crowd of supporters, holding up a newspaper with its front page headline declaring his opponent as the victor. 

Upset! Harry Truman and the 1948 Election comes from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.  The exhibit chronicles Truman’s election campaign through more than 100 artifacts, photographs, documents, and video from the Library’s collection, beginning with the disheartening 1946 off-year election losses for his party to the splintering of the Democratic party at the 1948 nominating convention, and ending with the ground Truman gained in his famous Whistle Stop campaign, which culminated with his “surprise” election to the presidency.