[2] Wendell Willkie withdrew from the race for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination on April 5, following his complete loss of the Wisconsin primary in which New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Harold Stassen, and General Douglas MacArthur claimed all the delegates.
"[citation needed] Willkie had stated during the Wisconsin campaign that any candidate who did not repudiate "America First and Gerald L. K. Smith cannot possibly be elected president.
[5] General Robert E. Wood, former head of the America First Committee, stated in Chicago on April 16, 1944, that there was no connection between the pre-Pearl Harbor organization and the current party led by the Reverend Gerald Smith.
[6] On April 29, 1944, Smith released a statement claiming that Governor Dewey was "Willkie's man", adding that "true nationalists and American Firsters cannot support Dewey-Roosevelt-Willkie internationalism.
Further, the convention nominated Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, already the Republican vice-presidential nominee, as Smith's running mate.
Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee, charged in Springfield, Illinois, that Smith had made a "sinister effort to smear"[10] Bricker.
"[11] Bricker, who had arrived in St. Louis for a two-day conference of the 26 Republican governors, told reporters that he had paid very little attention to Smith or his movement until last night, "when he associated my name with his at a meeting of some kind that was held in Michigan.
"[citation needed] In Detroit, Smith said that he was "happy and proud" to share a place with Congressman Hamilton Fish of New York on Dewey's "purge list.
"[citation needed] Smith added that Bricker, in "repudiating our sincere desire to mobilize 3,000,000 of our people in his behalf, displays the same weakness he showed when he capitulated unnecessarily to Mr. Dewey in Chicago.