1948 United States presidential election (Away down South)

1948 United States presidential election was the 41st quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 1948. Republican nominee, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. defeated U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond running on the splinter Dixiecrat nomination and unpopular incumbent Democratic President Henry Wallace in a landslide.

Wallace became President in April 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wallace won the contentious Democratic National Convention, however his progressive views on racial segregation as well as his foreign policy stance caused a walk-out of Southern delegates, starting the split in the Democratic Party. Lodge Jr. defeated his challengers as a darkhorse in the Republican primaries.

By 1948 the public largely soured on Wallace's views on most issues, despite continuation of most New Deal programs. Lodge rallied against Wallace's foreign policy and his refusal to use the atom bomb in Japan his handling of Operation Downfall, as well as his concessions to the Soviet Union, especially in accepting the Stalin Note. Thurmond surged in the South after Wallace came out as supportive of federally-enforced desegregation in Jim Crow states.

Lodge Jr. won in a landslide, earning 421 electoral votes, Thurmond came in second, winning 104 votes, making suprising inroads in Appalachia and the Steel Belt, Wallace had a third place finish, with 15 electoral votes, winning his home state of Minnesota as well as Rhode Island. Republicans increased their majorities in Congress, winning a trifecta for the first time since 1928.