Harry S. Truman’s unexpected election victory over Thomas Dewey was forever imprinted in history, thanks in part to this famous photo.

November 2 2020  — On November 2, 1948, incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman won an upset victory over Republican challenger and Governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, in the presidential election.  Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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Conventional wisdom, supported by polls, was almost unanimous that a Dewey presidency was “inevitable”, and that the New York governor would win the election handily.

The first (one-star) edition of the Tribune therefore went to press with the banner headline:

DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN

This is a good reminder that you should not always trust the polls and that you should not always believe what you read in your newspapers, not even the big titles.

Are you at times surprised by a poll?

Perhaps you should know that, more often than not, polls are not — at least no longer — used as an exercise to learn what people think but as a mean to ‘teach’ them what they must think in order to conform. I will come back soon to this subject. Stay tuned!

REFERENCES

Dewey Defeats Truman — Wikipedia

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On This Day — “Dewey Defeats Truman” (November 2 1948)

On This Day — “Dewey Defeats Truman” (November 2 1948) [2019]

On This Day — “Dewey Defeats Truman” (November 2 1948) [2020]