Conventional wisdom,[3] supported by polls, was almost unanimous that a Dewey presidency was "inevitable",
and that the New York governor would win the election handily. The "Dewey Defeats Truman" was a famously incorrect banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman beat Republican challenger and Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential election in an upset victory. As it turned out, Truman won the electoral vote by a 303-189 majority over Dewey and Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond, though a swing of just a few thousand votes in Ohio, Illinois, and California would have produced a Dewey victory. Instead of a Republican sweep of the White House and both houses of Congress, the Democrats held the Presidency and regained control of both the House and the Senate.
