Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win an unprecedented fourth term.

Unlike in 1940, Roosevelt faced little opposition within his own party, and he easily won the presidential nomination of the 1944 Democratic National Convention.

As World War II was going well for the United States and the Allies, Roosevelt remained popular despite his long tenure.

Although many Southern Democrats mistrusted Roosevelt's racial policies, he brought enormous war activities to the region and the end of its marginal status was in sight.

No major figure opposed Roosevelt publicly, and he was re-nominated easily when the Democratic Convention met in Chicago.

Truman was highly visible as the chairman of a Senate wartime committee investigating fraud and inefficiency in the war program.

The fight over the vice-presidential nomination proved to be consequential; the ticket won and Roosevelt died in April 1945, and Truman instead of Wallace became the nation's thirty-third President.

Taft surprised many by declining to run for president as he wanted to remain in the Senate; instead, he voiced his support for a fellow Ohio conservative, Governor John W.

At the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Dewey easily overcame Bricker and was nominated for president on the first ballot.

The Republicans campaigned against the New Deal,[11] seeking a smaller government and less-regulated economy as the end of the war seemed in sight.

To quiet rumors of his poor health, Roosevelt insisted on making a vigorous campaign swing in October and rode in an open car through city streets.

Dewey conceded in a radio address the following morning, but declined to personally call or to send a telegram to President Roosevelt.

The important question had been which leader,[22] Roosevelt or Dewey, should be chosen for the critical days of peacemaking and reconstruction following the war's conclusion.

[23] Dewey would again become the Republican presidential nominee in 1948, challenging President Truman (who had assumed that office on FDR's death), and would again lose, though by somewhat smaller popular- and electoral-vote margins.

As of 2025, this was the most recent presidential election in which a Democratic ticket has won every state of the former Confederacy as well as the entire southern region.

As he had in 1940, Roosevelt was the third of just four presidents in United States history to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote than in their prior elections; the other three are James Madison in 1812, Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and Barack Obama in 2012.

Additionally, Roosevelt was the fourth of only five presidents to win re-election with a smaller percentage of the popular vote than in prior elections; the other four are Madison in 1812, Andrew Jackson in 1832, Grover Cleveland in 1892, and Obama in 2012.

This is the last election in which New Hampshire and Oregon voted Democratic until 1964 and the last in which Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania did so until 1960.