Vermont voted for the Republican nominee, former Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, over the Democratic nominee, incumbent President Harry S. Truman of Missouri.

Dewey's running mate was Governor Earl Warren of California, while Truman ran with Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky.

Nevertheless, FDR had improved dramatically on previous Democrats’ performances in Vermont, and in an opposite trend of the nation, had been more Democratic in the 1940s than in either of the 1930s landslides, with Roosevelt coming within just under 10 points of winning Vermont in 1940.

Thus Dewey's decisive win with 61.54% marked the first time since 1928 that a Republican broke sixty percent of the vote in Vermont.

Dewey did win back sparsely populated Essex County, in the northeast of the state, which had defected to the Democrats and voted for Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944.