[1] Dewey and Warren went on to lose the general election to the Democratic Party's ticket of incumbent President Harry S. Truman and Kentucky senator Alben W. Barkley.

Dewey was the acknowledged leader of the GOP's powerful eastern establishment; in 1946 he had been re-elected Governor of New York by the largest margin in state history.

Taft had two major weaknesses: he was seen as a plodding, dull campaigner, and he was viewed by most party leaders as being too conservative and controversial to win a presidential election.

In New Hampshire, that meant Dewey relied on the state's Governor, Charles M. Dale, and other supporters to deliver the eight-person delegation to his column.

[4] Wisconsin had proven decisive in 1944 by eliminating Wendell Willkie from the campaign after a poor showing; in 1948, it evolved into a contest between native son Douglas MacArthur and neighbor Harold Stassen of Minnesota.

Dewey, maintaining his front-runner approach, remained in Albany and nearly declined to enter the primary, submitting his name only halfheartedly at the last minute.

[5] Though he did not initially campaign in the state, Dewey was weakened by Wisconsin; the leading candidates and other enemies, like former Congressman Hamilton Fish III, had the opportunity to attack him while he remained in New York.

[5] Dewey briefly entered the fray in the final days, delivering speeches at Kenosha and Appleton College, and issuing a statewide radio broadcast on April 1 to criticize Stassen's proposed ban on communists, famously arguing, "You can't shoot an idea with a gun.

[6] Given a break in the Senate schedule for Lincoln's birthday, Taft campaigned in Nebraska, as well as Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado in the span of one week.

His hand was forced, however, by an independent committee which placed the names of all candidates on the ballot and Senator Hugh A. Butler, who offered Taft the support of his political organization and personally planned a three-day campaign trip for him; he reluctantly agreed.

[8] The result was disaster for Taft, who finished a distant third (with only twice the vote of the non-candidate Vandenberg) and a boost for Stassen, who won a clean victory over Dewey.

[10] Taft's public relations advisor L. Richard Guylay utilized a radio campaign based on the principles of Gustave Le Bon, targeting veterans, young voters, and even union members with a direct appeal to emotion.

[10] Privately, however, Taft acknowledged Ohio as a Pyrrhic victory; the effort strained his health and budget and gave Dewey a major leg up on both exhausted candidates,.

[12] Dewey enlisted support from various lobbyists and groups, including Winthrop Aldrich, the Brooklyn Real Estate Board, the New York American Federation of Labor, Detroit Edison, the Michigan Alumni Association, Detroit Edison, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; he was even backed by lobbyists from the Minnesota Rose Society in Stassen's home state.

[12] The day before the primary, the Dewey campaign ran a telegram to every physician in the state, written by a former Stassen supporter who had soured on the candidate over socialized medicine.

[14] Dewey accepted, and as the challenged party, chose the format, topic, and rules; the debate would be broadcast nationally on 900 stations from a quiet studio at KEX Portland.

[14] During the debate, Stassen read credited his wartime service and world travels for his belief than an international Communist network demanded immediate, punitive response.

Dewey responded with an extemporaneous criticism of the Mundt-Nixon Bill as a "grievous error," and pointed to the fact that Canada had banned communism but still hosted an international espionage ring in the Russian embassy.

[14] In his concluding remarks, Dewey delivered the most famous lines of the night:[14] "I am unalterably, wholeheartedly, and unswervingly against any scheme to write laws outlawing people because of their religion, political, social, or economic ideas.

I am against it because I know from a great many years experience in the enforcement of the law that the proposal wouldn't work, and instead would rapidly advance the cause of Communism in the United States and all over the world.

"Dewey won the primary by just under 10,000 votes;[15] Stassen no longer had a direct path to the nomination and had failed at establishing himself as the clear popular favorite.

[10] Though Stassen had entered the primaries as the presumable heir to Wendell Willkie as the leader of liberal Republicans, the debate over communism had flipped his and Dewey's positions.